I 
• 


THIRD    EDITION 


INITIAJIVE 


AND 


EFERENDU 


THIS  BOOK  TELLS  YOU 
WHAT  YOU  OUGHT  TO  KNOW 


BY 


JAMES  BOYLE 

Private  Secretary  of  Governor  Wm.  McKinley; 
Former  Consul  of  U.  S.  to  Liverpool,  Eng. 

Author  of  "Organized  Labor  and  Court  Decisions," 
"The  New  Socialism/'  "What  U  Socialism?"  (la  the  Press.) 


PRICE  30  CENTS 

BY  MAIL  35  CENTS  (Post-office  Order  or  Stamps) 

A.  H.  SMYTHE 

43  SOUTH  HIGH  ST..  COLUMBUS,  OHIO 

1912 


THE 


INITIATIVE  AND 
REFERENDUM: 

ITS 

FOLLY,  FALLACIES,  AND  FAILURE 

BY 

JAMES  BOYLE 

Private  Secretary  of  Governor  McKinley; 

Former  Consul   of  the   United   States  at  Liverpool,   England. 

Author  of  "Organized  Labor  and  Court  Decisions," 

"The  New  Socialism,"  etc. 


THIRD  .EDITION 


A.   H.  SMYTHE 
43  SOUTH  HIGH  STREET.  COLUMBUS,  OHIO 

1912 


COPYRIGHT,  1912 
BY  JAMES  BOYLE 


Contents. 


PAGE 

WHAT  SOME  WISE  MEN  HAVE  SAID 5 

THE  PROPOSITION  STATED 7 

The  Propulsive  Force 7 

The  Initiative   8 

The  Referendum   10 

An  Important  Distinction 11 

THE  CASE  AGAINST  THE  INITIATIVE  AND  REFER- 
ENDUM   15 

Revolutionary    15 

Reactionary    19 

-  The  Undemocratic  Initiative 20 

*-  Referendum  :    Theory  vs.  Practice 23 

^Destructive  to  Representative  Government 25 

Labor  and  the  I.  &  R 28 

-Means   Minority   Rule 32 

"Serves  the  Majority  Right !" 39 

The  Cities  Will  Dominate 40 

The  Gate- Way  to  Socialism 42 

"The  Madness  of  Democracy" 44 

"Taxation    Without    Representation" 45 

Means  Crude  Legislation 47 

The  Joseph  Fels  Fund  Commission 49 

"Mum's   the   Word !" 51 

Money   Galore    54 

The  Standard  American  Authority 57 

Hon.  James  Bryce  on  Direct  Legislation 63 

Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  I.  &  R 66 

Two   Great   Fallacies 68 

SWITZERLAND'S   EXPERIENCE    70 

"Circumstances  Alter  Cases" 70 

Prof.   Oberholtzer's  Warning 71 

Why  Switzerland  Adopted  the  I.  &  R 72 

3 


241272 


4  CONTENTS. 

SWITZERLAND'S  EXPERIENCE— Concluded.  PAGE 

Prof.  Lowell's  Adverse  Opinion 74 

How  Switzerland  Differs  From  the  U.  S 75 

Minister  Swenson  Points  Out  Drawbacks 77 

Compulsory  Voting  in   Switzerland 78 

What  a  Belgian  Economist  Says 83 

The  Initiative  a  Failure 86 

Ex-President  Droz  Condemns  the  Initiative 88 

THE  MUDDLE  IN  OREGON 90 

A  Warning  to  Other  States 90 

Single  Taxers  Back  of  it 92 

State   University  Jeopardised 96 

Crude  and  Conflicting  Laws 97 

Constitutional  Muddle  98 

SOUTH  DAKOTA   104 

The  Original  Initiative  State 104 

What  the   Governor   Says 105 

A  FEW  CLOSING  WORDS 107 

APPENDIX    109 

Daniel  Webster  on  "Constant  Clamorers" 109 

An  Ancient  Example 110 

The  "Fathers"  Knew  Their  Business Ill 

"Pure"  vs.   "Representative"   Democracy 112 

"A  Republican  Form  of  Government" 114 

"The  Greatest  Tragedy  of  Christendom" 115 

Legislative   "Cure-alls" 117 

"Utterly  and  Hopelessly  Undemocratic" 118 

Gov.  O'Neal,  of  Alabama,  on  the  I.  &  R..  .  120 


What  Some  Wise  Men 
Have  Said. 


GLADSTONE  on  the  American  Constitution:  — 

"The  American  Constitution  is  the 
greatest  work  struck  off  at  a  given  time 
by  the  brain  and  purpose  of  man." 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON  on   Representative  Government:  — 

(Speaking  of  the  "Rights  of  Man")  :- 
"Modern  times  have  the  signal  advan- 
tage too,  of  having  discovered  the 
ONLY  DEVICE  by  which  these  rights 
can  be  secured,  to- wit:— government  by 
the  people,  acting  not  in  person,  but 
by  REPRESENTATIVES  chosen  by 
themselves." 

DANIEL  WEBSTER  on  Chronic  Clamorers:  — 

"There  are  persons  who  constantly 
clamor.  *  *  *  They  carry  on  a  mad 
hostility  against  all  established  institu- 
tions." 

WOODROW  WILSON  on  the  Initiative  and  Referendum:-— 

A  Government  "can  no  more  make 
laws  through  its  voters  than  it  can 
make  laws  through  its  newspapers. 
*  *  *  What  I  mean  to  say  is  that  pop- 
ular INITIATIVE  IS  AN  INCON- 
CEIVABLE THING!" 

5 


Rainbow  Chasing! 


It  is  the  old  contest  between  idealism  and  stubborn,  matter- 
of-fact  reality.  It  is  the  story  of  the  philosopher's  stone  over 
again — the  dream  of  transmuting  all  the  metals  into  gold — the 
hunt  for  the  master  key  that  will  open  all  locks,  however  different 
in  size  and  shape — the  problem  of  fitting  square  pegs  into  round 
holes — the  puzzle  of  how  to  eat  one's  cake  and  have  it — the  search 
for  the  chimera  of  perpetual  motion — the  quest  for  the  mythical 
pot  of  gold  at  the  foot  of  the  rainbow — and  all  the  other  impos- 
sible undertakings  which  have  vexed  men's  souls  and  turned  their 
brains  and  filled  the  lunatic  asylums  since  mankind  was  divided 
into  those  who  see  facts  and  those  who  see  visions. 

[Speech  of  Hon.  George  Sutherland  (of  Utah} t  in  the 
U.  S.  Senate,  July  11,  1911,  on  "Government  by 
Ballot."] 


The  Proposition  Stated. 


The  Initiative  and  Referendum  combined, 
constitute  what  is  called  " Direct  Legislation," 
as  a  substitute  for  or  supplementary  to  our 
present  Representative  system;  and  it  is  the 
modern  form  of  the  so-called  "Pure  Democra- 
cy" of  the  ancients. 

THE  PROPULSIVE  FORCE. 

The  "Progressives"  have  accepted  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum  as  one  of  the  cardinal 
articles  of  their  creed;— indeed,  many  of  them 
look  upon  it  as  the  foundation-stone  of  their 
Temple  of  Reform.  As  will  be  shown  hereafter, 
the  propulsive  force  in  the  movement  comes 
from  certain  groups  of  minorities;  particularly 
Single  Taxers  (those  who  favor  the  placing  of 
all  taxation  on  Land  Values,  as  advocated  by 
Henry  George).  There  are  "chronic  clamor- 
ers"  (as  Daniel  Webster  calls  them),  who  al- 
ways fall  in  line  with  the  "latest  thing  out"  in 
politics,  religion,  and  every  "cult,"  the  principal 
feature  of  which  is  that  it  is  "something  new." 
But  after  a  while  the  thing  palls  on  them,  and 
they  cast  it  aside.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  but 

7 


8  INITIATIVE  AND   REFERENDUM. 

fair  to  say  that  thousands  of  patriotic  citizens 
favor  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  because 
they  have  absorbed  the  belief  that  Direct  Legis- 
lation will  remedy  the  admitted  evils  of  the 
times,—  particularly  Legislative  incompetency 
and  venality.  But  they  have  not  studied  the 
matter  beneath  the  surface;  had  they  done  so 
they  would  realize  that  Direct  Legislation  is— 
in  these  days,  and  especially  for  the  American 
people— impracticable,  revolutionary,  and  re- 
actionary, and  that  it  would  be  followed  by  a 
train  of  evils  greater  than  those  of  which  they 
complain ;  in  fact,  they  would  realize  that  these 
evils  are  not  primarily  or  necessarily  the  fault— 
and  generally  not  the  fault  at  all— of  the  Rep- 
resentative system,  imperfect  as  that  system  is, 
like  everything  else  human;  and  they  would 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  most  of  these  evils 
are  the  fault  of  the  people  themselves  in  not  liv- 
ing up  to  their  Civic  obligations.  Without  en- 
tering into  the  details  of  suggested  forms  and 
variations  and  modifications  of  Direct  Legisla- 
tion, the  following  is  a  fair  statement  of  the 
proposition,  in  a  broad,  general  way:— 

THE   INITIATIVE. 

\  It  is  proposed  to  change  the  Constitution  so 
as  to  give  the  right  to  a  certain  percentage  of 
the  voters  to  originate  Amendments,  and  also  to 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  9 

originate  general  State-wide  Statutory  Laws,  by 
petition.^ 

The  proposed  percentage  qf  voters  required 
in  a  petition  for  a  Constitutional  Amendment  is_ 
variously  fixed,— according  to  the  Radicalism  or 
Conservatism  of  the  advocate— from  5  to  12  per 
cent  of  the  total  number  of  voters  in  the  State, 
it  being  generally— but  not  always— conceded 
that  there  should  be  a  higher  percentage  re- 
quired for  Constitutional  Amendments  than  for 
Statutory  Laws.  For  an  Initiative  Bill  the  per- 
centage named  is  generally  5,  sometimes  8. 

There  is  generally  also  a  make-believe  con- 
cession that  an  Initiative  Bill  shall,  in  the  first 
instance,  be  presented  to  the  Legislature  in  or- 
der to  give  that  body  an  opportunity  to  pass  it. 
But  neither  the  Legislature  nor  anybody  else 
is  to  ,be  allowed  to  change  or  amend  or  correct 
the  measure  in  the  slightest— even  though  it  may 
plainly  be  in  conflict  with  other  laws,  uncon- 
stitutional or  impracticable ;  and  if  the  Legisla- 
ture does  not  pass  it  exactly  as  presented  the 
Secretary  of  State  is  to  refer  it  to  the  people  for 
action.  It  is  proper  to  say  that  some  advocates 
are  willing  that  the  Legislature  shall  be  permit- 
ted—as is  the  case  in  Switzerland— to  offer  rec- 
ommendations ;  but  this  concession  is  opposed  by 
the  Radicals ;  and  anyhow,  as  the  same  organized 
minority  which  secured  its  Initiation  are  not 


10  INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDTTM. 

likely  to  favor  any  recommendation  which  will 
be  important,  and  as  that  minority  will  be  all 
ready  for  the  campaign  as  against  the  unorgan- 
ized majority,  the  concession  does  not  amount  to 
much. 

THE   REFERENDUM. 


u, 


Tnder  the  Referendum,  all  Constitutional 
Amendments  and  all  Statutory  Bills  which  have 
originated  under  the  Initiative,  as  above  ex- 
plainly,  must  be  referred  to  the  people  direct,  for 
passage;  also,  if  a  certain  percentage  of  voters 
petition  that  it  be  done,  any  Legislative  Bill 
must  be  referred  to  the  people  for  final  passage. 

The  percentage  of  voters  required  on  a  Ref- 
erendum petition  is  variously  named  at  from  5 
to  8  per  cent,  of  the  total  number  of  voters.  All 
Constitutional  Amendments  and  Statutory  Bills 
shall  go  into  passage  and  become  the  law  of  the 
State— or  the  country  at  large,  as  the  "reform" 
is  intended  in  time  to  become  National— if  they 
receive  A  BARE  MAJORITY  OF  VOTES 
CAST  THEREON— even  though  that  majority 
should  be  a  DECIDED  MINORITY  OP  ALL 
THE  VOTES  CAST  at  that  particular  election 
—as  it  always  is. 

This  last  t  point  should  be  kept  carefully  in 
mind,  as  it  is  one  of  the  foundation  principles  of 
the  Initiative  and  Referendum. 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  11 

While  there  are  some  slight  variations,  this 
is  the  prevailing  form  of  the  Referendum.  It  is 
called  the  OPTIONAL  or  FACULTATIVE 
Referendum.  The  extremists  demand  that  ALL 
Bills  passed  by  the  Legislature  shall  be  referred 
to  the  people  for  final  passage,  whether  peti- 
tioned for  or  not ;  this  form  is  called  the  COM- 
PULSORY Referendum. 

A  Under  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  it  is 

\  intended  to!  ABOLISH  THE  GOVERNOR'S 
VETO,— that  is,  on  all  laws  passed  through  the 
Referendum.  Whether  THE  SUPREME 
COURT  shall  be  allowed  to  pass  upon  the  CON- 
STITUTIONALITY of  such  Laws  is  a  hard 
nut  for  the  advocates  of  the  Initiative  and  Ref- 
erendum to  crack,  s 

AN   IMPORTANT  DISTINCTION. 

It  should  be  clearly  understood  that  the  Ini- 
tiative and  Referendum,  as  now  demanded,  is 
different  entirely  in  principle  from  the  existing 
system  of  referring  Constitutional  Amendments 
to  the  people  for  ratification  after  consideration 
and  formulation  by  a  Legislature  or  a  Constitu- 
tional convention ;  so,  also,  the  proposed  system 
of  Direct  Legislation  as  to  general  Statutory 
Laws  is  very  different  from  the  well-known 
principle  of  " Local  Option,"  or  the  reference  to 


12  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

the  people— in  Municipalities  or  the  State  at 
large,  as  the  case  may  be— of  specific,  concrete 
propositions  involving  the  issuance  of  bonds,  the 
granting  of  franchises,  etc.,  or  some  radical 
change  in  established  policy.  In  the  one  case 
there  is  direct  general  legislation  by  the  people 
in  mass— in  theory  at  least,  although  experience 
shows  that  a  minority  of  the  voters  practicallyl 
always  decide  the  issue ;  while  in  the  other  case 
there  is  Conventional  or  Legislative  action,  un-U^ 
der  the  long-established  American  Representa- 
tive principle,  as  a  condition-precedent  One 
system  is  absolutely  opposed  to  the  theory  and  ,  , 
practice  of  Representative  government— and 
this  is  particularly  so  as  to  the  Initiative ;  the 
other  is  perfectly  consistent  with  that  theory  and 
practice.  The  plausible  advocates  of  the  Initia- 
tive and  Referendum  conveniently  ignore  this 
great  distinction. 

It  is  quite  evident,  therefore,  that  arguments 
which  might  apply  favorably  to  what  for  dis- 
tinction's sake  we  will  call  the  Representative- 
Referendum  practice,  do  not  necessarily— and, 
indeed,  they  generally  do  not— apply  to  Direct 
Legislation  under  the  proposed  new  Initiative 
and  Referendum,  for  the  passage  of  Constitu- 
tional Amendments  and  general  Statutory  Laws. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  to  the  average  lay 
mind  there  is  some  difficulty  in  grasping  the 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  13 

distinction  referred  to ;  yet  there  is  a  fundamen- 
tal distinction,  subtle  though  it  may  appear  at 
first.  Under  our  present  Representative  systefri, 
Laws  are  passed  by  the  Legislature,  and  no  other 
power  can  pass  them ;  while  under  the  Initiative 
and  Referendum  the  people  pass  Laws  by  Direct 
action).  Yet  there  is  a  middle  ground  in  regard 
to  the  going  into  effect  of  certain  Laws  under  the 
Representative  system,  as  above  indicated. 
While  the  Legislature  under  our  present  Con- 
stitution cannot  delegate  the  power  to  MAKE 
Laws,  yet,  under  the  well-known  decision  of  the 
Ohio  Supreme  Court,  rendered  by  Judge  Ranney 
(who  was  a  stanch  upholder  of  the  Representa- 
tive system),  the  Legislature  can  confer  an  au- 
thority or  discretion  as  to  its  execution;  but  it 
must  be  kept  in  mind  that  the  power  to  pass  the 
Law  under  which  that  authority  or  discretion 
may  be  exercised,  remains  with  the  Legislature. 
For  instance,  the  Legislature  passed  the  Local 
Option  Laws  under  which  communities  can  pro- 
hibit the  liquor  traffic ;  so,  likewise,  the  Legisla- 
ture can  repeal  those  Laws. 

A  failure  to  take  note  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  two  forms  of  direct  action  by  the  peo- 
ple, is  unquestionably  the  cause  of  a  vast  number 
of  patriotic  and  intelligent  citizens  thinking  that 
they  favor  the  Initiative  and  Referendum,  when 
really  they  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  This  fact 


14  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

was  notorious  during  the  recent  campaign  in 
Ohio  when  members  of  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention were  elected. 


The  Case  Against  the  Initiative 
and  Referendum. 


.. 


The  Case  Against  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum" is  made  out  first  by  argument,  and  sec- 
ondly by  giving  the  results  of  experience.  To  the 
reader  the  writer  ventures  to  hope,  in  the  words 
of  Boswell:  "I  have  found  you  an  argument." 
But  experience  is  better,  for  it  is  even  "the 
teacher  of  fools;"  and  to  the  wise,  also,  accord- 
ing to  Bacon  (one  of  the  wisest  of  men),  "By 
far  the  best  proof  is  experience." 

REVOLUTIONARY. 

In  principle  and  practice  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  is  Revolutionary /in  that  it  is  ^op- 
posed to  the  established  Representative  system 
of  our  American  Government.  Of  course  it  will 
not  be  disputed  that  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  provides  for  the  Representative 
system  of  Legislation  in  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment. Neither  can  it  be  disputed  that  the  Fath- 
ers deliberately  chose  this  system,  after  giving 
due  consideration  to  other  forms,  including  Di- 
rect Legislation,  as  was  then  being  expounded  by 
the  brilliant  but  altogether  unpractical  French- 
is 


16  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

man,  Rousseau,  who  believed  that  governments 
could  not  act  "but  when  the  people  are  assem- 
bled." With  him  Representative  Government 
was  only  an  evil ;  he  opposed  the  election  of  Rep- 
resentatives to  make  laws,  but  held  that  Deputies 
should  be  considered  only  as  Commissioners, 
who  should  not  be  qualified  to  conclude  upon 
anything  definitely.  "No  act  of  theirs,"  said 
Rousseau,"  can  be  a  Law  unless  it  has  been  rati- 
fied by  the  people  in  person;  and  without  that 
ratification  nothing  is  a  law."  Another  erratic 
genius  who  created  a  stir  at  that  period  was 
Thomas  Paine— that  "phenomenon"  and  "dis- 
astrous meteor,"  as  John  Adams  called  him. 
Although  an  Englishman,  Paine  took  a  lively 
interest  in  the  establishment  of  the  independence 
of  the  American  colonies.  He  advocated 
Rousseau's  plan  of  government.  At  first  even 
Benjamin  Franklin  seems  to  have  been  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  Rosseau-Paine  system,  but,  after 
a  thorough  exchange  of  opposing  views,  he 
agreed  with  the  other  framers  of  the  Consti- 
tution in  favor  of  the  Representative  system. 
The  very  first  section  of  the  First  Article  of 
the  Federal  Constitution  reads:  "All  legisla- 
tive Powers  herein  granted  shall  be  vested  in 
a  Congress  of  the  United  States,  which  shall  con- 
sist of  a  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives." 
The  late  Mr.  Justice  Harlan,  of  the  U-  S.  Su- 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFEEENDUM.  17 

preme  Court,  in  an  address  delivered  in  Decem- 
ber, 1907,  thus  explained  the  sort  of  Federal  Gov- 
ernment under  which  we  have  the  privilege  of 
living: 

"The  national  government,  it 
should  ever  be  remembered,  is  one  of 
limited  delegated  powers  and  is  not  a 
pure  democracy  in  which  the  will  of 
a  popular  majority  as  expressed  at 
the  polls  at  a  particular  time  be- 
comes immediately  the  supreme  law. 
It  is  a  representative  republic  in 
which  the  will  of  the  people  is  to  be 
ascertained  in  a  prescribed  mode 
and  carried  into  effect  only  by  ap- 
pointed agents  designated  by  the 
people  themselves  in  the  manner  in- 
dicated by  law." 

The  advocates  of  the  Initiative  and  Referen- 
dum look  forward  to  the  time  when  they  can  so 
amend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  as 
to  establish  Direct  Legislation  in  National  af- 
fairs ;  but  for  the  present  they  are  content  to  con- 
fine their  energies  to  the  constituent  States. 

A  question  of  great  interest,  and  possibly  of 
extreme  importance,  came  to  the  front  in  Novem- 
ber, 1911.  On  a  case  from  Oregon  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  had  submitted  to  it 
the  question  of  whether  or  not  the  establishment 
of  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  in  any  State  is 


18  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

in  conflict  with  Section  Four  of  Article  Four  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  which  de- 
clares that  "The  United  States  shall  guarantee 
to  every  State  in  the  Union  a  Republican  Form 
of  Government. "  In  a  nutshell,  the  question  is: 
What  is  a  " Republican  form  of  Government*?" 
—Does  the  word  " Republican"  mean  exclusively 
a  Representative  system,  or  is  it  used  simply  as 
the  antithesis  of  a  Monarchial  or  an  Autocratic 
form"?  The  writer  does  not  propose  to  enter  into 
this  discussion;— for,  aside  from  his  incompe- 
tency  as  a  layman,  he  is  quite  content  to  let  the 
Supreme  Court  settle  the  question.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  moreover,  in  opposing  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum,  he  accepts— for  argument's  sake— 
the  assumption  of  its  advocates  that  it  is  quite 
within  the  "reserved"  powers  of  the  people  of 
any  State  to  so  amend  their  Constitution  as  to 
permit  Direct  Legislation.  This  does  not  affect 
one  jot  his  contention  that  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  is  opposed  to  the  Representative 
system  as  now  existing  in  the  several  States— 
—both  in  intent  and  effect.  It  may  not  destroy 
the  form  of  the  Representative  system,  but  it 
certainly  contracts  and  negatives  its  power  as 
well  as  its  dignity,  as  one  of  the  three  branches 
of  the  general  American  system  of  Government; 
^  ,!and  it  also  undoubtedly  injuriously  affects  the 
character  and  spirit  of  both  the  Legislators  and 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  19 

their  legislation,  and  inflicts  upon  the  State,  to  a  I 
greater  or  less  extent,  the  evils  of  the  historic! 
Pure  Democracy. 

REACTIONARY. 

The  principles  and  practical  effects  of  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum  are  Reactionary  as 
well  as  Revolutionary.  ,  Those  who  advocate 
Direct  Legislation  are  "Retrogressives,"  not 
"Progressives."  They  have  their  faces  and  feet 
turned  not  to  the  future,  but  to  the  past,— and 
that  past  is  strewn  with  the  wrecks  and  failures 
of  Pure  Democracy.  It  is  admitted  that  the 
"moot"  of  Old  England  and  the  town-meeting 
of  New  England  are  equally  unsuited  to  the  con- 
ditions of  to-day.  |  So  the  Retrogressives  have 
adopted  the  Swiss  system  of  making  laws  by  bal- 
lot, entirely  ignoring  the  great  differences  in  the 
government  and  the  political,  social,  and  geo- 
graphical conditions  of  Switzerland  as  compared 
with  those  of  the  United  States. 

The  Hon.  Samuel  W.  M^CaU,  Member  of 
Congress  from  Massachusetts,  in  an  address, 
"Representative  as  Against  Direct  Govern- 
ment," before  the  Ohio  Bar  Association  at  the 
Annual  Meeting  held  at  Cedar  Point,  Ohio,  July 
12,  1911,  said: 

"The  framers  of  the  Constitution 
were  entirely  familiar  with  the  fail- 


20  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

ure  of  direct  democracy  in  the  gov- 
'ernment  of  numerous  populations, 
and  they  were  influenced  by  their 
knowledge  of  that  failure  in  devising 
our  own  structure  of  republican  gov- 
ernment. It  is  now  proposed  to 
abandon  the  discovery  of  modern 
times,  to  which  Jefferson  referred, 
and  which  he  declared  to  be  the  only 
method  by  which  rights  can  be 
secured,  and  to  put  in  its  stead  the 
discarded  device  of  the  ancients. 
Who,  then,  are  the  reactionaries: 
those  who  are  opposed  to  the  substi- 
tution of  direct  for  representative 
government  and  are  in  favor  of  the 
progressive  principles  of  the  Ameri- 
can Constitution,  or  the  supporters 
of  direct  government  who  advocate 
the  return  to  the  reactionary  policies 
which  thousands  of  years  ago  demon- 
strated their  destructive  effect  upon 
the  government  of  any  considerable 
populations?" 

THE   UNDEMOCRATIC   INITIATIVE. 

The  Initiative  and  the  Referendum  are  really 
two  distinct  propositions,  founded  on  antago- 
nistic principles.  ftThe  Initiative  is  based  on  the 
principle  that  a  minority  of  voters— generally  8 
per  cent— shall  be  given  the  right  not  only  to 
initiate  Constitutional  Amendments  or  Statutory 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  21 

Laws,  but  to  decide  the  exact  form  in  which  they" 
shall  be  presented  for  passage,  I  without  giving, 
the  vast  majority  of  the  voters^  92  per  cent— 
either  directly  or  through  their  representatives 
any  opportunity  to  amend  them.  /In  this  respec 
the  modern  Initiative  is  far  inferior  in  principle 
to  the  ancient  Pure  Democracy,  for  the  latter, 
theoretically  anyhow,  possessed  the  principle  of 
majority  rule.|  No  law  can  formulate  itself;  the 
authority  to  formulate  a  law  is  equal  to  the 
power  to  pass  it  if  the  latter  power  does  not  in- 
clude the  right  to  change  it  or  amend  it  before  it 
is  passed.  Therefore,  under  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum,  the  majority— 92  or  95  per  cent- 
find  themselves  in  this  predicament:  they  must 
either  accept  the  bill  which  the  8  per  cent  has 
drafted  for  them,  on  its  own  motion,  and  with- 
out consulting  any  other  authority  or  proportion 
of  citizens,— the  majority  must  either  do  this,  or 
they  must  succumb  to  Philosophic  Anarchism 
-the  absence  of  any  Law  except  that  of  the  indi- 
~  vidual  will.  Quite  apart  from  the  advantage  of 
having, 'received  careful  scrutiny  and  the  safe- 
guard of  having  to  pass  through  several  Commit- 
tees, a  Legislative  Law  has  this  immense  supe- 
riority over  an  Initiative  Law:— it  is  formulated 
by  a  majority  of  the  voters  of  the  State  in  a  Rep- 
resentative sense; — that  is,  the  Committees 
which  recommend  it  are  selected— directly  or  in- 


22  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

directly— by  a  majority  of  the  Legislature, 
which  practically,  in  a  numerical  idea,  represent 
a  majority  of  the  voters;  then,  if  a  majority  of 
the  members  of  the  Legislature— who  represent 
the  majority  of  the  voters  of  the  State  —want  to 
do  so,  they  can  amend  or  change  the  Bill  to  meet 
their  views.  But  an  Initiative  Bill  represents 
the  views  of  nobody  but  the  signers  of  the  peti- 
tion—a small  minority  of  the  total  number  of 
the  voters,  and,  human  nature  being  what  it  is, 
probably  a  large  proportion  of  the  signers  have 
not  got  the  slightest  knowledge  of  what  they 
signed.  It  is  notorious  that  men  can  be  easily 
persuaded  to  sign  petitions  for  almost  anything. 
*/  The  objections  to  the  Initiative  are  so  ob- 
vious to  every  student  of  political  economy  from 
the  standpoint  of  both  logic  and  experience,  that 
its  advocates  are  hard  driven  to  produce  authori- 
ties to  back  up  their  oratorical  claims.  A  careful 
reading  of  some  accepted  National  and  Interna- 
tional authorities  quoted  as  supporting  the  Ini- 
tiative and  Referendum,  shows  that,  as  a  rule, 
they  do  not  refer  to  or  include  the  Initiative  at 
all,  but  only  cover  the  Referendum,— and  in 
some  cases  they  only  refer  to  the  Referendum  of 
Legislative  Bills  or  Constitutional  Amendments 
drafted  by  the  Legislature  or  by  a  Convention 
called  for  that  purpose.  This  is  largely  true  of  • 
Prof.  Bryce ;  and  particularly  of  such  economists. 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  23 

as  Prof.  Oberholtzer  (the  author  of  the  one  thor- 
ough standard  book  on  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum in  America),  Prof.  Lowell  (probably  the 
greatest  American  authority  on  foreign  govern- 
ment and  politics),  Prof.  Deploige,  the  eminent 
Belgian  economist,  and  also  of  M.  Numa  Droz, 
the  leading  Swiss  writer  on  the  subject,  who  was 
for  twenty  years  a  member  of  the  Swiss  Federal 
Council  (the  highest  Federal  power)  and  an  ex- 
President  of  the  Republic.  The  proof  of  this  is 
demonstrated  by  extracts  quoted  herein ;  and  it 
will  be  seen  that  some  of  them,  while  they  give  a 
qualified  endorsement  to  the  Referendum  in 
Switzerland,  are  absolutely  opposed  to  the  Ini- 
tiative. But  the  Initiative  and  Referendum,  as 
now  proposed,  in  this  country,  must  be  taken  as 
one  system.  If  the  mild  and  qualified  approval 
sometimes  given  to  the  Swiss  Referendum  is  to 
be  applied  to  the  Initiative,  —  as  it  is  by  the 
American  apologists  of  the  system— then,  by  the 
same  token,  the  emphatic  condemnation  of  the 
Initiative  by  the  same  writers,  should  be  applied 
to  the  Referendum,  when  the  two  are  combined 
in  one  system. 

REFERENDUM:      THEORY  VS.  PRACTICE. 

The  theory  of  the  Referendum  must  be  con- 
ceded to  be  that  the  people— that  is,  a  majority 
of  the  people— shall  rule,  in  the  final  passage  of 


14  INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDTJM. 

Laws.  Tet  in  its  universal  application  there  is 
recognized  the  absolute  right  of  a  small  minority 
—from  5  to  8  per  cent  of  the  total  number  of 
voters— -to  suspend  Legislative  Laws  duly  passed 
by  the  representatives  of  a  majority  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  and  in  practice  it  results  in  another  minority 
finally  passing  these  Laws,  for  the  history  of 
the  Referendum  is  that  only  a  minority  of  the 
electors  vote  for  the  propositions.  Therefore, 
while  in  its  outward  form  it  expresses  the  will  of 
the  people,  yet  in  substance  it  has  the  same  un- 
democratic defect  possessed  by  the  Initiative- 
Minority  Rule. 

It  is  true  that  some  economists  contend  that 
" silence  gives  consent"  and  that  if  a  majority 
permit  a  minority  to  pass  a  Law,  the  majority 
have  no  right  to  complain.  But  the  same  argu- 
ment holds  good  as  to  the  Representative  sys- 
tem :  for  undoubtedly  most  of  the  political  evils 
of  the  day  arise  from  the  neglect  of  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  people  to  avail  themselves  of  their 
civic  privileges  and  obligations.  It  is  to  be  fur- 
ther remarked,  also,  that  it  is  an  experience  sel- 
dom with  an  exception,  in  Switzerland  as  in 
America,  that  citizens  take  far  greater  interest  in 
the  election  of  men  than  they  do  in  the  passage  of 
Laws.  All  observers,  native  and  foreign,  are  im- 
pressed with  the  apathy  of  voters  to  the  proposi- 
tions submitted  to  them ;  and  it  has  been  demon- 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  25 

strated  in  Switzerland  that  compulsory  voting  is 
no  remedy,  as  from  20  to  30  per  cent  of  the  voters 
cast  blank  ballots.  What  is  the  remedy?— Cer- 
tainly not  giving  people  more  of  what  they  plain- 
ly show  they  do  not  want. 

DESTRUCTIVE  TO   REPRESENTATIVE   GOVERNMENT. 

The  plea  that  the  Initiative  and  Referendum 
is  merely  supplementary  to  the  Representative 
system,  to  make  it  more  effective,  is  opposed  to 
both  logic  and  experience.  |  Tl^omas^ Jefferson, 
knew  what  he  was  talking  about  when  he^  de- 
clared that  the  REPRESENTATIVE  SYS- 
TEM was  "the  ONLY  DEVICE"  by  which  the 
rights  of  man  could  be  assured.  1  Legislators  will 
assuredly  have  their  sense  of  responsibility 
dulled  by  the  Initiative  land  Referendum.  /  The 
people  can  initiate  laws;  the  people  can  pass 
Laws:  therefore  let  the  people  be  responsible;— • 
and  the  argument  is  sound.  But  who  will  "Ref- 
erendum" or  "Recall"  the  people?  Yet  the  peo- 
ple sometimes  make  mistakes,— though  it  is 
almost  rank  treason  in  these  days  of  cheap  fawn- 
ing demagogy  to  say  so— God's  truth  though  it 
be!/ 

Mr.  Bryce— and  there  is  no  better  outside  au- 
thority—says in  his  "American  Common- 
wealth," that  Direct  Legislation  "tends  to  lower 
the  authority  and  sense  of  responsibility  in  the 


26  ^/      INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

Legislature."  In  his  last  edition  (1910)  he  de- 
clares that  "the  Initiative  is  a  supersession  of 
the  Legislature  which  tends  even  more,  (l^haiAthie 
Referendum)  to  reduce  its  authority."  (p.  479.) 

Originally  the  Portland  "Oregonian"  was  in 
favor  of  the  Initiative  and  Referendum ;  but  af- 
ter observing  its  operations  for  several  years  it 
came  out  emphatically  in  opposition  to  it.  In  one 
of  its  articles  denunciatory  of  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum,  it  said,  "It  was  not  intended  that 
representative  government  should  be  abolished 
by  the  new  system ;  but  it  has  been  abolished  by 
it ; "  and  it  predicts  that ' '  Oregon  will  yet  return 
to  it." 

The  greatest  of  our  American  authorities, 
Prof.  Oberholtzer,  says  in  the  new  edition  (1911) 
of  "The  Referendum  in  America,"  that  it  will 
make  officials  "timid,  shambling,  ineffective 
men,"  and  that  "it  is  in  conflict  with  the  spirit 
and  traditions  of  our  political  system." 

A  leading  candidate  for  the  Presidential  nom- 
ination, Grov.  Woodrow  Wilson,  one  of  our  most 
learned  University  educators,  says  that  "it  has 
dulled  the  sense  of  responsibility  among  legisla- 
tors, without,  in  fact,  quickening  the  people  to; 
the  exercise  of  any  real  control  of  affairs." 

Still  another  great  American  educator,  Prof. 
Lowell,  President  of  Harvard,  after  showing 
that  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  was  estab- 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  27 

listed  in  Switzerland  because  of  the  inexperience 
of  that  country  with  Representative  government, 
affirms  that,  applied  to  ordinary  Statutes— as  is 
proposed— it  is  inconsistent  with  our  polity,  and 
could  not  be  engrafted  without  altering  its  very 
nature. 

Our  American  Minister  to  Switzerland,  Hon. 
L.  S.  Swenson,  in  an  impartial  statement  of  the 
working  of  the  system  in  that  country,  reports 
that  "it  lessens  the  sense  of  responsibility  on 
the  part  of  the  legislator." 

As  Prof.  Oberholtzer  says  in  the  addendum 
to  the  new  edition  of  his  work  on  the  subject,  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum  is  not  only  "un- 
American,"  but  it  is  "un-English," —meaning 
that  it  is-  opposed  to  the  English  representative 
system,  on  which  our  system  is  so  largely  based. 
A  comparison  of  the  English  Representative  sys- 
tem and  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  plan  will 
show  this : 

(1)  Under  the  Initiative  and  Referendum, 
any  proposition,  though  concocted  in  secret  by 
a  cabal,  club,  or  caucus,  and  no  matter  how  crude 
or  vicious,  or  how  little  understood  by  the  major- 
ity, or  how  new  in  principle,  can  be  forced  to  pop- 
ular vote  by  an  insignificant  minority. 

Under  the  British  Representative  system,  an 
"appeal  to  the  country"  (as  it  is  called)  is  al- 
ways on  a  measure— when  the  appeal  is  on  a 


28  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

measure— which  has  been  formulated,  scrutin- 
ized and  presented  under  Parliamentary  rules, 
by  the  Party  which  at  least  when  elected  repre- 
sented the  majority  of  the  people.  And,  under  the 
British  system,  it  is  men  who  are  elected,  not 
measures  which  are  passed,  when  an  "  appeal  to 
the  country"  is  made. 

(2)  Under  the  Initiative  and  Referendum, 
cold,  bare,  abstract  propositions  are  submitted, 
which  by  themselves  never  elicit  enough  public 
interest  to  draw  out  a  majority  affirmative  vote. 
\  Under  the  British  system,  the  appeal  is  not 
only  as  to  a  measure,  but  as  to  men  as  well ;  with- 
out the  latter,  the  former  is  often  simply  aca- 
demic, if  not  lifeless ;  with  it,  there  is  the  vital- 
ization  given  by  the  touch  of  human  interest. 

It  is  the  lack  of  the  vitalizing  touch  of  human 
interest  which  accounts  for  the  deadening  indif- 
ference to  Initiative  and  Referendum  proposi- 
tions,—resulting  in  only  minority  action— so  uni- 
versally noted  by  observers  of  the  system  the 
world  over. 

LABOR  AND  THE   I.  &  R. 

The  Initiative  and  Referendum  is  not  only  al 
menace  to  honest  and  reform  government,  but 
is  a  false  friend  to  Labor.    It  provides  a  device 
through  which  unscrupulous  " special  interests" 
can  secure  their  ends  with  far  greater  ease  than 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  29 

they  can  under  the  Representative  system,  when 
they  have  familiarized  themselves  with  its  tricks 
and  when  the  general  public  have  become  wearied 
of  the  numerous  petitions  and  elections  peculiar 
to  the  system. 

In  the  first  place,  while  it  is  not  popular  to 
tell  the  truth  about  the  matter,  yet  it  is  the  truth, 
whole  communities  can  sometimes  be  polit- 
ically debauched.  This  has  been  demonstrated 
in  the  two  most  democratic  countries  in  the  world 
—the  United  States  and  England.  But,  without 
the  Initiative  and  Referendum,  there  has  been 
established  civic  righteousness  and  electoral  hon- 
esty in  England,  and  under  the  Representative 
system  the  Democracy  of  Great  Britain  are  now 
making  greater  strides  than  are  being  made  in 
any  other  country.  American  politicians  freely 
concede  that,  in  the  past,  groups  of  voters  in  the 
different  States  have  been  bought  up  not  only  in 
" blocks  of  five"  but  in  droves  like  sheep.  Within 
the  past  year  the  proud  State  of  Ohio  has  been 
humiliated  by  exposures  of  wholesale  political 
venality  in  several  of  her  counties.  The  Repre- 
sentative system  was  surely  not  responsible  for 
that  condition  of  affairs ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was 
a  showing  of  what  are  the  possibilities  of  Direct 
Democracy.  And  all  this  is  true  in  spite  of  the 
undoubted  fact,  that  at  heart  the  great  mass  of 
the  common  people  are  honest. 


30  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

American  Trade  Unionists  have  generally  en- 
dorsed the  Initiative  and  Referendum  for  the 
reason  that  they  believe  that  through  it  they  can 
secure  certain  reforms  they  demand.  Possibly 
they  might  do  so;—  and  probably  also,  they  can 
in  due  time  by  the  exercise  of  patience  and 
intelligent  agitation,  secure  the  same  reforms 
through  the  Representative  system,  should 
their  demands  appeal  to  the  sense  of  reason 
and  fair-play  of  the  people  of  the  State. 
But  in  advocating  the  Initiative  and  Ref- 
erendum the  Trade  Unionists  are  short-sighted. 
If  they,  as  an  organized  minority, — and  that  they 
are  a  decided  minority  of  the  total  electorate 
must  be  conceded— can  secure  their  demands 
through  the  Initiative  and  Referendum,  so,  like- 
wise, can  other  minorities  use  the  scheme  for 
purposes  that  are  altogether  selfish.  Because 
Switzerland  has  the  Initiative  and  Referendum 
it  is  often  spoken  of  as  "the  most  democratic 
country  in  the  world. "  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, so  far  as  the  wage-earners— the  "proleta- 
riat"—are  concerned,  the  United  States,  Eng- 
land, Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  Canada— all 
under  the  Representative  system— are  far  more 
democratic  and  far  more  responsive  to  Labor's 
demands  for  reform,  than  is  Switzerland.  The 
reason  is  that,  as  explained  elsewhere,  the  major- 
ity of  the  people  of  Switzerland  are  naturally 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  31 

conservative  and  anti-Socialist,  they  being  small 
peasant  proprietors.  No  Labor  man  or  Socialist 
will  dispute  the  authority  of  Robert  Hunter.  In 
his  "  Socialists  at  Work"  (1908)  he  says  (speak- 
ing of  Switzerland) : 


. . 


The  electoral  system  is  open  to 
much  fraud,  which  is  unscrupulously 
practised  by  the  capitalist  parties  to 
keep  the  workers  from  representa- 
tion in  the  National  Council.  At  the 
last  election  the  socialists  assembled 
70,000  votes,  by  which  they  claim  to 
have  won  25  seats,  but  they  were  only 
allowed  six.  Recent  inquiries  have 
been  made  into  the  extent  of  exploi- 
tation of  child-labor,  with  the  appal- 
ling revelation  that  53  per  cent  of  the 
children  attending  school  are  also 
employed  in  laborious  daily  work. 
The  school  teachers  complain  that  the 
mentality  is  now  very  low,  and  that 
40  per  cent  of  the  children  are 
stunted.  Capitalism  has  become  in- 
tense, and  with  it  an  almost  savage 
system  of  oppression  has  been  insti- 
tuted by  the  government.  *  *  *  Swit- 
zerland has  become  notorious  for  the 
frequency  with  which  the  soldiery  is 
used  against  striking  workmen." 

And  all  this  in  the  model  Initiative-Referen- 
dum Republic! 


32  INITIATIVE  AND  BKFEKENDUM. 

An  estimate  has  been  made  that  under  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum  as  operated  in  Ore- 
gon, 10  per  cent  of  the  electorate  practically 
make  the  Constitution  and  the  Laws,— that  is, 
that  they  control,  that  percentage  being  the  dif- 
ference between  the  affirmative  and  the  negative 
vote  on  propositions  submitted;— and  it  should 
always  be  remembered  that  the  combined  affirm- 
ative and  negative  vote  under  the  system  is  only 
from  50  to  75  per  cent  of  the  votes  cast  for  candi- 
dates at  the  same  election.  To  those  familiar 
with  practical  politics  it  is  apparent  that  un- 
scrupulous men,  with  money  back  of  them,  can 
so  use  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  as  to  be 
able  to  "throw"  this  10  per  cent  as  desired,  for 
"special  interests,"  or  for  partisan,  class  or  even 
personal  ends. 

In  fact,  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  is  a 
perfect  Pandora's  Box  of  political  evils  to  tor- 
ment the  State. 

MEANS   MINORITY   RULE. 

An  overwhelming  objection  to  the.  system  is 
that  wherever  it  has  been  tried  it  has  resulted  in 
minority  rule.  Even  in  Switzerland— the  most 
favorable  State  possible  for  the  system— Direct 
Legislation  is  always  by  minorities.  This  is  so  as 
to  important  as  well  as  to  comparatively  trifling 
matters.  The  vote  on  the  prohibition  of  absinthe 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  33 

—a  question  of  great  interest  in  Switzerland- 
only  reached  370,470,  out  of  a  total  voting 
strength  of  over  800,000. 

Prof.  Oberholtzer  says  in  his  book,  "The  Ini- 
tiative and  Referendum  in  America:"  "There  is 
but  a  fraction  equal  to  about  half  of  all  those 
who  know  their  own  minds  respecting  candidates 
who  seem  to  care  anything  about  measures."/ At 
special  elections,  "it  is  impossible  to  get  out 
even  half  the  vote,  unless  it  be  on  a  proposition 
to  deprive  a  citizen  of  his  beer  or  gin.  .  .  . 
Even  a  proposal  to  enfranchise  an  entire  new 
half  of  the  race,  and  to  double  the  electorate,  or  to 
ally  the  State  openly  with  lottery  men  and  gam- 
blers." 

What  is  true  of  Switzerland  and  the  United 
States  is  true  of  Canada.  In  no  country  in  the 
world  are  politics  keener  than  in  the  Dominion, 
and  public  questions  are  discussed  there  as  a  rule 
with  a  fervor  rare  even  in  the  United  States.  But 
the  Canadians  will  not  go  to  the  polls  to  vote  sim- 
ply on  propositions;— there  must  be  "the  human 
touch"  of  candidates  to  bring  out  the  vote.  On 
September  29,  1898,  a  National  "plebiscite"  on 
the  question  of  prohibition  was  taken  in  Canada 
-that  being  a  burning  issue  at  the  time,  and 
Premier  Laurier  was  strenuously  importuned  by 
the  temperance  element  to  pass  a  prohibitory 
Law  covering  the  entire  Dominion.  So,  in  order 


34  INITIATIVE  AND  KEFEKENDTJM. 

to  test  public  sentiment,  he  referred  the  question 
to  the  people— or  took  a  "  plebiscite "  on  it, 
as  it  is  called  in  that  country.  The  num- 
ber of  registered  voters  was  1,236,423;  the 
total  number  who  voted  on  the  proposition 
was  543,013— less  than  44  per  cent  of  the 
registered  number  of  voters;  while  those  who 
voted  for  prohibition  were  only  278,380;  those 
against,  264,633;— a  majority  for  prohibition  of 
13,747.  Now,  take  careful  note  of  this:  Al- 
though the  votes  cast  for  Prohibition  were  only 
22  1-2  per  cent  of  the  total  number  of  voters,  yet, 
under  the  undemocratic  Referendum  plan,  that 
number  of  voters  being  a  majority— although  a 
small  one— of  the  votes  cast  upon  the  propo- 
sition, prohibition  would  have  been  declared 
passed  in  Canada.  But  Canadian  statesmen  are 
reared  in  the  British  school  of  Representative 
government,  and  Premier  Laurier  very  properly 
declined  to  accept  the  result  as  sufficiently  de- 
cisive to  warrant  Parliamentary  action;  and 
even  Prohibitionists  conceded  that  he  was  right. 
In  an  article  by  Phillip  A.  Allen  in  the  Bos- 
ton " Evening  Transcript,"  May  23, 1906,  figures 
were  given  showing  the  total  vote  upon  various 
Laws  and  Constitutional  Amendments,— 17  in 
number.  The  percentage  ranged  from  78  to  19. 
In  eight  instances  the  vote  was  less  than  50  per 


INITIATIVE  AND  EEFEEENDTJM.  35 

cent;  in  only  six  instances  did  it  exceed  60  per 
cent. 

It  is  true  that  in  Oregon  the  percentages  on 
Initiative  and  Referendum  propositions  have 
been  comparatively  high;  but  there  are  three 
special  reasons  for  this  fact:  (1)  the  novelty  o 
the  thing:  --  the  Oregon  people  play  with  direct , 
legislation  as  children  do  with  a  new  toy ;  (2)  the  ^ 
interest  aroused  by  the  woman's  suffrage  cam- 
paign;—and  in  Oregon,  strange  to  say,  there  are 
women's  organizations  strongly  opposed  to  fe- 
male suffrage,  as  well  as  in  favor  of  it;  (3)  the 
fact  that  Oregon  is  the  home  of  some  of  the  ablest 
and  most  fanatical  of  the  National  leaders  of  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum  movement,  —  men 
who  have  devoted  their  lives  to  it,  and  who  have 
become  political  potentialities  through  the  organ- 
ized minority  forces  which  the  system  enables 
them  to  establish  and  control.  But  the  day  will 
come  when  the  novelty  will  have  gone,  when  the 
woman's  suffrage  movement  will  have  settled 
itself,  one  way  or  another,  and  when  the  people 
will  have  tired  of  the  leadership  of  the  astute 
gentlemen  who  now  "run  things;"— indeed, 
there  are  evidences  that  that  day  is  approaching. 

Walter  F.  Brown,  Chairman  of  the  Ohio  Re- 
publican State  Central  Committee,  is  in  favor  of 
the  principle  of  the  Initiative  and  Referendum. 


36  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

But  lie  feels  constrained  to  confess,  after  person- 
ally investigating  it  in  Oregon,  that  "the  system 
in  force  there  is  far  from  perfect,  and  that  it 
opens  wide  the  door  to  the  very  abuses  against 
which  it  is  aimed,  to-wit :  legislation  in  the  inter- 
est of  a  selfish  minority."  (See  chapter  on  Ore- 
gon.) 

The  complaint  is  made  in  Switzerland  that 
only  about  43  per  cent  of  the  people  vote  (alto- 
gether) on  propositions,  under  the  Referendum. 
(See  chapter  on  Switzerland.) 

Less  than  27  per  cent  of  the  voters,  and  only 
6  per  cent  of  the  total  population  of  the  Territory 
of  Arizona,  voted  for  the  Initiative-Referendum- 
Recall  Constitution. 

In  October,  1911,  California  adopted  a  new,  * 
Constitution  including  a  number  of  radical 
amendments,  among  them  being  the  Initiative, 
Referendum,  Recall  and  Woman's  Suffrage. 
These  amendments  were  adopted  by  a  minority 
of  the  qualified  voters  of  the  State,— that  is,  less 
than  half  of  the  voters  of  the  State  voted  on  the 
propositions,  including  affirmative  and  negative. 
There  were  23  amendments  submitted,  and  the 
official  statement  of  the  amendments  filled  12 
square  feet  of  small  solid  print.  It  was  simply 
a  physical  impossibility  for  the  majority  of  the 
average  voters  to  read  and  intelligently  pass 
upon  such  a  mass  of  matters ;  —  so  they  simply 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  37 

stayed  away  from  the  polls.  The  New  York 
"Times"  (Indep.  Dem.),  of  October  18,  1911, 
speaking  of  the  amendments  —  apart  from  the  I. 
&  R.,  Recall,  and  Woman's  Suffrage  says  edito- 
rially, under  the  heading  "Anti-Democracy  in 
California:" 

"Most  of  them  are  not  fit  for  con- 
stitutional enactment  at  all,  but 
should  be  within  the  scope  of  the 
powers  of  the  Legislature.  *  *  *  This 
new  method  of  handling  the  basic 
law  of  the  State  is  advocated  in  the 
name  of  democracy.  In  reality  it  is 
utterly  and  hopelessly  undemocratic. 
While  pretending  to  give  greater 
rights  to  the  voters,  it  deprives  them 
of  the  opportunity  effectively  and  in- 
telligently to  use  their  powers.  *  *  * 
When  the  machine  managers  get 
familiar  with  the  working  of  the  new 
method,  they  will  work  it  for  their 
own  ends  far  more  readily  than  they 
work  the  present  method.  The  aver- 
age voter,  muddled  and  puzzled  and 
tired  by  the  impossible  task  of  really 
understanding  and  deciding  on  a 
mass  of  matters,  will  give  it  up,  and 
then  the  politicians  will  get  in  their 
fine  work.  *  *  *  It  would  be  as  easy 
to  run  the  business  of  a  big  railroad 
by  leaving  every  detail  of  its  manage- 
ment to  a  vote  of  the  shareholders 


38  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

as  it  will  be  to  run  the  business  of 
a  State  under  the  new  system." 

The  New  York  "Sun"  says: 

"Out  of  43  of  the  64  measures 
submitted  in  Oregon  since  1904,  only 
75,  or  less  than  75  out  of  100  men  who 
went  to  the  polls,  voted  yes  or  no. 
In  only  14  out  of  32  cases  in  the  last 
election  did  the  percentage  rise  to  70 
or  more  than  70.  When  the  percen- 
tage is  70,  36  per  cent  of  the  voters 
can  enact  a  law.  *  *  *  In  the  decade 
•  from  1899  to  1908  out  of  472  consti- 
tutional questions  submitted  to  the 
people  of  various  states  as  many  as 
240  received  less  than  half  the  vote 
cast  for  candidates.  Only  8  reached 
or  exceeded  90  per  cent.  In  Cali- 
fornia in  1904,  when  6  amendments 
were  submitted  to  the  people,  none 
received  more  than  40  per  cent  of  the 
vote;  in  1906  when  14  amendments 
were  submitted,  the  lowest  percen- 
tage was  30,  the  highest  33.  In  Colo- 
rado in  1900  one  amendment  received 
19  per  cent.  In  Connecticut  3  amend- 
menis  in  1905  varied  from  18  to  22 
per  cent;  4  in  Florida  in  1900,  from 
24  to  32  per  cent ;  7  in  the  same  state 
in  1904  from  22  to  30  per  cent ;  8  in 
New  Jersey  in  1903  from  11  to  12  per 
cent;  7  in  New  York  in  1905  from  25 
to  30  per  cent;  3  in  Pennsylvania  in 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  39 

1901  from  27  to  30  per  cent ;  2  in  Vir- 
ginia in  1901  from  10  to  11  per  cent ; 
1  in  Indiana  in  1906  about  8  per  cent ; 
1  in  Ohio  in  1903  only  6  per  cent." 

"SERVES  THE  MAJORITY  RIGHT!" 

It  is  sometimes  argued  that  if  the  majority 
fail  to  vote  it  is  their  own  fault  if  the  minority 
carry  the  day,  —  and  that  the  majority  then  have 
no  right  to  complain.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  com- 
plaining, —  it's  a  matter  of  adopting  a  system 
the  universal  experience  with  which  is  that  it 
elicits  the  interest  of  only  a  minority  of  the 
voters.  The  argument  referred  to  cuts  both 
ways,  —  it  can  be  used  in  favor  of  the  Eepre- 
sentative  system  with  just  as  much  force:  for  if 
the  majority  of  the  electors  took  sufficient  inter- 
est to  elect  honest  and  capable  men,  there  would, 
admittedly,  be  no  need  of  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum ;  —  and  if  this  is  not  done,  then  the 
electors  have  no  right  to  complain ;  the  remedy 
is  in  the  people's  own  hands,  and  if  they  don't 
use  it  it  is  their  own  fault.  But  human  nature 
must  be  accepted  as  it  is,  and  the  wise  statesman 
tries  to  utilize  it  to  the  best  advantage.  He  cer- 
tainly, however,  will  not  make  it  easy  for  the 
minority  to  enforce  its  will  against  the  majority, 
even  though  the  majority  is  to  blame,  unless  such 
a  system  is  absolutely  unavoidable.  That  is  the 
best  system  of  popular  government  which  ap- 


40  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

peals  to  the  largest  number  of  the  electors  in  an 
intelligent  manner,  not  in  a  mere  transitory 
fashion,  but  continuously.  There  is  something 
radically  wrong  with  a  system  the  inevitable  and 
universal  tendency  of  which  is  to  cause  a  ma- 
jority of  the  electors  to  practically  disfranchise 
themselves.  The  Initiative  and  Referendum  as 
an  effective  instrument  of  popular  government  is 
opposed  to  human  nature  and  human  experi- 
ence ;  —  that  of  itself  absolutely  condemns  it. 

THE  CITIES  WILL  DOMINATE. 

Already  17  counties  in  which  the  large  cities 
are  situated  can  outvote  the  remaining  77  coun- 
ties of  Ohio.  The  report  of  the  Secretary  of 
State  for  1908  shows  that  the  vote  of  these  17 
counties  was  in  that  year  571,545,  while  that  of 
the  other  77  counties  was  but  564,980.  That 
difference  keeps  on  increasing.  The  U.  S.  Cen- 
sus returns  for  1910  show  that  in  that  year  60 
per  cent  of  the  population  of  Ohio  were  in  urban 
dstricts,  leaving  only  40  per  cent  in  the  country 
districts,  —  a  change  of  12  per  cent  in  10  years 
in  increase  of  the  urban  population.  |Not  only 
are  native  Americans  flocking  more  and  more 
into  the  cities,fbut  the  cities  are  yearly  receiving 
vast  multitudes  of  immigrants  who  do  not  speak 
our  language,  and  who  have  not  been  reared  in 
self-government  as  we  understand  it  in  America. 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  41 

/  Is  it  not  plain  that  the  country  folk  are  in  im- 
minent danger  of  being  swamped  as  to  legislation 
by  the  ever-growing  multitudes  of  our  cities  ?  A 
sure  way  to  bring  that  about  would  be  by  en- 
grafting the  Initiative  and  Referendum  onto  our 
Constitution./  Is  that  desirable  ? 

The  advocates  of  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum clearly  understand  this ;  —  in  fact,  it 
looks  as  if  this  is  what  they  want,  —  they  want 
to  enforce  their  rule  on  the  country  districts, 
even  though  it  will  be  by  the  monstrous  injustice 
of  Minority  Rule,  which  is  always  the  effect  of 
the  Initiative  and  Referendum.  They  know  that 
this  can  be  done  not  only  through  the  increase 
of  population  of  the  cities  over  the  country,  but 
because  experience  with  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum has  demonstrated  that  the  various  classes, 
groups  and  special  interests  of  the  cities  can  be 
effectively  organized  through  underhand  and 
corrupt  methods,  if  that  be  necessary,  as  the  ex- 
perience of  Oregon,  South  Dakota,  and  even 
Switzerland,  shows.  Brand  Whitlock,  the 
fourth-term  Mayor  of  Toledo,  and  the  President 
of  the  Progressive  Constitution  League  of  Ohio, 
and  who  is  being  constantly  heralded  as  an  up- 
to-date  Reformer,  is  reported  to  have  said  to  a 
group  of  working  men:  I" Under  representative 
form  of  government  the  counties  hold  the  balance 
of  power.  Under  direct  legislation  the  city  will 


42  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

control.  |  The  farmers  have  always  been  dead 
weight  about  the  necks  of  the  laboring  men.  We 
will  get  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  and  will 
then  give  them  a  taste  of  the  same  kind  of  legis- 
lation they  have  been  giving  us."  —  (Address  of 
Mrs.  Mary  E.  Lee,  at  Fairview,  Ohio,  Aug.  23, 
1911.) 

Is  that  a  statesmanlike  utterance? 

.       THE  GATE-WAY  TO  SOCIALISM. 

The  old  " International"  Socialists  were  the 
first  organized  political  group  to  fully  appreciate 
the  stupendous  use  which  can  be  made  of  the  In- 
itiative and  Referendum  to  enable  a  minority  to 
grasp  the  power  of  government.  Unquestion- 
ably it  is  the  realization  of  this  fact  which  is 
giving  such  uneasiness  to  the  more  thoughtful 
and  statesmanlike  of  the  Swiss  public  men  and 
political  economists.  So  long  as  Switzerland 
was  purely  an  agricultural  and  a  pastoral  coun- 
try, with  the  small  peasant  proprietors  in  com- 
plete control,  the  Referendum  (not  the  Initia- 
tive) was  fairly  successful,  under  the  unique 
political  system  and  social  conditions  of  that 
country.  But  of  recent  years  a  change  has  com- 
menced to  come  over  the  character  of  the  popu- 
lation and  in  their  social  conditions;  the  pro- 
letariat has  arrived. 

As  far  back  as  1869  the  "International"  ap- 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  43 

proved  the  Referendum,  at  the  Convention  at 
Basle.  It  has  since  then  —  along  with  the  In- 
itiative —  been  one  of  the  most  prominent  of  the 
" immediate  demands"  of  International  Social- 
ism. It  appeared  in  the  Program  of  Gotha,  in 
1895,  and  again  in  the  Program  of  the  Erfurt 
Congress.  |The  Initiative,  Referendum  and  the 
Recall  are  always  included  in  the  National  and 
State  platforms  of  the  American  Socialist  Party.] 
The  Socialists,  while  they  are  in  a  dream  as  to 
the  establishment  of  the  Marxian  "  Co-operative 
Commonwealth,"  know  what  they  want  as  to 
" immediate  demands,"  and  especially  as  to  the 
Initiative,  Referendum  and  the  Recall.  I  If 
Socalism  is  ever  established  in  the  United 
States  —  so  far  as  it  can  be  established  —  it  will 
be  through  the  Initiative  and  Referendum,] 
should  this  glorious  land  of  true  liberty  ever/ 
forget  itself  sufficiently  as  to  adopt  that  suicidal 
policy. 

Following  is  an  extract  from  an  article  in  the 
" Contemporary  Review"  (London,  Eng.),  Jan- 
uary, 1911,  by  a  well-known  American  writer  on 
political  economy,  Mr.  Frank  Foxcroft  (Bos- 
ton) : 

"It  is  to  be  observed,  too,  that 
under  this  system  (Initiative  and 
Referendum)  the  conservatives  are 
always  at  a  disadvantage.  The  dice 
are  loaded  against  them.  The  vari- 


44  INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDUM. 

ous  groups,  the  Socialists,  the  single- 
taxers,  the  woman  suffragists  and  the 
rest  will  sign  each  other's  petitions 
and  get  their  different  propositions 
before  the  people.  When  the  cam- 
paign opens  the  radicals  are  already 
organized.  They  know  what  they 
want,  and  they  will  co-operate  ener- 
getically to  secure  it.  But  the  con- 
servatives are  handicapped.  It  is  al- 
ways harder  to  organize  the  negative 
than  the  affirmative." 

There  is  a  tremendous  political  truth  in  the 
latter  observation.  Not  only  is  the  Initiative 
and  Referendum  a  game  of  " Loaded  dice" 
against  the  unorganized  majority,  but  it  is  a 
cruel  handicap  and  an  eternal  danger  to  un- 
organized minorities,  who  are  dumb  and  helpless 
against  others  of  their  fellow-citizens  who  are 
organized,  and  are  possibly  not  as  considerate 
of  the  rights  of  others  as  they  ought  to  be.  One 
of  the  glorious  advantages  of  the  Representa- 
tive system  is  that  it  tends  to  protect  the  rights 
of  the  otherwise  helpless  minorities.  No  system 
of  government  is  truly  democratic  which  does  not 
do  that. 

"THE   MADNESS  OF   DEMOCRACY." 

At  the  Dinner  of  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee, 
at  Council  Bluffs,  Iowa,  October  11,  1911,  Arch- 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  45 

bishop  Ireland  severely  condemned  the  Initia- 
tive, Referendum  and  Recall.  Among  other 
things  he  said: 

"The  clamor  now  is  heard  that 
the  organization  of  American  Demo- 
cracy, such  as  the  Republic  has 
known  for  a  century  and  a  quarter, 
must  be  altered,  torn  asunder,  under 
the  pretense  that  with  it  the  people 
do  not  govern  with  sufficient  direct- 
ness. Let  us  hope  that  the  clamor 
is  but  a  passing  ebullition  of  feel- 
ing. 

' '  Democracy,  yes ;  Mobocracy, 
never.  And  toward  Mobocracy  we 
are  now  bidden  to  wend  our  way. 
The  shibboleths  of  the  clamor,  the  In- 
itiative, the  Referendum,  the  Recall, 
put  into  general  practice,  as  the  evan- 
gelists of  the  new  social  gospel  would 
fain  have  them,  are  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  the  madness  of  Democracy." 

Cardinal  Gibbons  is  equally  emphatic.  In 
a  sermon  delivered  at  Baltimore,  Sunday,  Octo- 
ber 1,  1911,  he  said:  "To  give  to  the  masses  the 
right  of  annulling  the  Acts  of  the  Legislature  is 
to  substitute  Mob  Law  for  established  Law." 

"TAXATION  WITHOUT  REPRESENTATION." 

Writing  from  Prance,  to  Madison,  December 
20,  1787,  Thomas  Jefferson  spoke  of  "the  good 


46  INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDUM. 

of  preserving  inviolate  the  fundamental  princi- 
ple that  the  people  are  not  to  be  taxed,  but  by 
representatives  chosen  immediately  by  them- 
selves." The  Initiative  and  Referendum  would 
abolish  this  " fundamental  principle,"  and  would 
place  the  tremendous  power  of  taxation  —  the 
highest  power  any  State  can  exercise,  next  only 
to  that  of  imprisonment  or  inflicting  the  death 
penalty  —  in  the  hands  of  selfish  groups  and 
classes  of  organized  minorities.  While  it  is  right 
and  proper  that  communities  should  vote  upon 
specific  propositions  imposing  special  taxation, 
after  they  have  been  thrashed  out  and  formu- 
lated by  some  representative  body,  the  case  is 
immensely  different  under  the  purpose  of  the 
proposed  State-wide  Initiative  and  Referendum. 
In  practical  effect  the  latter  would  be  "  taxation 
without  representation,"  because  the  tax  would 
be  formulated  in  secret  by  some  minority  group, 
and  then  —  possibly  included  with  a  number  of 
other  befuddling  propositions  —  submitted  on  a 
Referendum,  which  experience  shows  would  only 
arouse  the  interest  of  a  minority.  The  property 
of  the  tax-paying  citizens  would  thus  be  at  the 
mercy  of  any  minority  who  desired  to  " shift" 
the  burden  of  taxes  on  shoulders  other  than  their 
own.  This  consideration  alone  ought  to  be  suffi- 
cient to  bury  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  be- 
neath an  avalanche  of  votes  when  the  people  of 


t 
>  INITIATIVE  AND  BEFEKENDTJM.  47 

the  State  get  a  chance  at  the  system  in  concrete 
form. 

MEANS  CRUDE   LEGISLATION. 

Advocates  of  the  Initiative  and  Referendum 
are  compelled  to  recognize!  the  force  of  the  ob- 
jection that  crude  measures  are  sure  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  people  under  their  system./  It  is 
now  suggested  that  the  Legislature  should  have 
power  to  amend  crude  measures  adopted  by  the 
people  under  the  Initiative.  This  certainly 
would  be  desirable  should  the  Initiative  unfor- 
tunately become  established  in  our  system  of 
legislation;  but  it  is  a  confession  that  Direct 
Legislation,  while  possibly  all  right  as  an 
abstract  theory,  is  impracticable  as  a  system  of 
actual  legislation.  There  is  also  this  serious  ob- 
jection to  the  suggested  compromise :  jfln  its  very 
essence  Direct  Legislation  is  a  proclamation  that 
the  people  do  not  trust  the  Legislature;  it  is 
therefore  reasonable  to  assume  that  Legislators 
would  take  but  little  interest  in  bills  submitted  to 
them  under  the  Initiative,  particularly  when 
they  would  have  to  be  referred  back  to  the  peo- 
ple for  adoption;  the  probable  consequence, 
therefore,  would  be  that  the  Legislators  would 
be  inclined  to  wash  their  hands  of  the  entire  mat- 
ter, and  let  the  bills  pass  even  with  conceded 
defects.  First,  there  would  be  general  indiffer- 


48  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

ence  because  of  lack  of  direct  responsibility ;  and 
secondly  the  Legislators  would  take  rather  a 
cynical  pleasure  in  demonstrating  that  the  people 
en  masse  are  incapable  of  legislating  properly. 
While  these  governing  influences  are  not  to  be 
commended,  they  are  quite  in  line  with  the  in- 
fluences controlling  human  nature ;  —  and  no  leg- 
islation or  system  of  government  in  the  world  has 
yet  succeeded  in  killing  human  nature. 

One  of  the  strongest  objections  is  that  under 
the  Initiative,  measures  must  be  accepted  or  re- 
jected in  their  entirety.  Under  the  Representa- 
tive system,  it  is  very  seldom  that  a  bill  is  passed 
in  the  exact  form  in  which  it  is  introduced,  — 
even  though  it  be  drawn  up  by  an  experienced 
legislator.  It  is  scrutinized  by  a  committee  in 
each  branch,  and  then  has  to  be  read  and  debated 
by  the  members  of  both  branches.  Finally,  it  has 
to  run  the  gauntlet  of  the  Governor's  veto.  But 
under  the  Oregon  plan  every  measure  must  be 
submitted  exactly  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  on 
the  petition.  Even  though  the  substance  of  the 
bill  might  be  worthy,  yet  the  form  of  the  bill 
might  be  defective ;  or  it  is  quite  likely  that  while 
part  of  the  bill  might  be  advisable  to  enact,  other 
portions  might  be  highly  objectionable.  But  the 
genuine  Initiative  bill  must  go  to  the  people  with- 
out the  change  of  a  word,  and  be  voted  upon  with 
all  its  original  imperfections.  "Let  the  people 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  49 

rule ! ' '  To  give  opportunities  for  needed  amend- 
ments is  an  interference  with  that  divine  right ! 
The  New  York  "Nation,"  —  one  of  the  ablest 
and  most  independent  journals  in  America  — 
said  September  21,  1911 : 

s  "The  heart  of  the  issue  lies  in  the 

question  whether  in  the  long  run  the 
initiative-referendum  system  will  sap 
the  vitality  of  representative  govern- 
ment ;  whether  it  will  result  in  turn- 
ing over  all  really  vital  questions  to 
the  decision  of  a  mere  numerical  ma- 
jority at  the  polls  —  in  a  state  of 
things  in  which  a  momentous  change 
like  the  introduction  of  prohibition 
or  the  free  coinage  of  silver  may  be 
effected  in  a  moment,  without  the  in- 
terposition of  any  chance  for  the  as- 
sertion, by  representative  men,  of 
those  intellectual  and  moral  powers 
which  have  hitherto  been  regarded  as 
an  essential  part  of  the  forces  that 
shape  our  political  destinies." 

THE  JOSEPH   PELS  FUND  COMMISSION. 

NOTE.  —  The  writer  wishes  it  dis- 
tinctly understood  that  in  giving  the 
following  facts  he  does  not  intend  to 
cast  any  personal  reflection  upon  Mr. 
Joseph  Fels  or  upon  the  gentlemen 
who  compose  the  Commission  which 
manages  the  fund  established  for  the 
purpose  of  "putting  the  Land  Value 


50  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

Tax  into  effect  somewhere  in  the 
United  States  within  five  years;"  - 
and  as  to  the  talented  corps  of  polit- 
ical organizers  and  orators  working 
under  the  instructions  of  the  Com- 
mission, they  cannot  be  criticised  for 
the  part  they  play.  Neither  does  the 
writer  take  any  position  —  for  or 
against  —  with  regard  to  the  Henry 
George  theory  of  Land  Tax  Value. 
He  believes,  however,  that  the  people 
of  the  country  should  clearly  under- 
stand what  has  put  new  life  into  the 
Single-Tax  movement  in  America, 
and  what  is  the  propulsive  force  back 
of  the  agitation  for  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum,  and  the  reasons  there- 
for. 

Some  of  the  facts  given  below 
have  been  denied  in  public  debate  by 
one  of  the  leading  Single-Tax  en- 
thusiasts, who  was  largely  instru- 
mental in  securing  delegates  to  the 
Ohio  State  Constitutional  Convention 
pledged  to  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum. Hence  the  preciseness  of 
detail  in  quotations  from  an  official 
authoritative  source  which  cannot  be 
challenged.  The  pages  indicated  be- 
low refer  to  the  Report  of  the  Single 
Tax  Conference,  held  at  New  York, 
November  19-20,  1910,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Fels  Fund  Commis- 
sion.) 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  51 

While  Socialism,  ever  since  the  days  of  the 
old  European  " International,"  has  always 
frankly  declared  for  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum, as  a  means  to  accomplish  its  purposes, 
the  propulsive  force  back  of  the  present  move- 
ment in  the  United  States  is  that  which  is  fur- 
nished by  the  Single  Taxers,  with  the  financial 
backing  of  a  rather  unique  character,  Mr.  Joseph 
Fels,  a  millionaire  soap  maker,  of  London,  Eng- 
land. It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that 
the  Single  Tax  movement  was  as  dead  as  a  salt 
mackerel  until  the  last  few  years ;  but  a  remark- 
able resurrection  and  revivification  of  the  almost 
forgotten  cult  has  taken  place ;  and  the  miracle 
has  been  effected  by  the  stream  of  gold  the  foun- 
tain head  of  which  is  the  rather  blunt  and  frank, 
but  very  generous  millionaire  soap  maker,  Mr. 
Joseph  Fels,  of  London.  And  " Eureka  I"  -the 
way  has  been  discovered  by  which  the  erstwhile 
academic  doctrines  of  Henry  George,  held  by  but 
a  handful  of  devotees,  can  be  forced  on  the  ma- 
jority, namely,  through  the  Initiative  and  Ref- 
erendum. 

"MUM'S  THE  WORD!" 

There  is  an  organization  of  National  scope 
called  the  Fels  Fund  Commission,  the  officially 
declared  object  of  which  is  "not  to  propagandize 
the  country,  but  to  put  the  Land  Value  Tax  into 


52  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

effect  somewhere  in  the  United  States  within  five 
years  —  and  that  requires  votes,  which  cannot  be 
got  without  political  action."  (Page  13,  Report 
of  Single  Tax  Conference,  held  in  New  York, 
Nov.  19  and  20, 1910.)  A  careful  reading  of  the 
official  Report  of  the  Fels  Fund  Commission  and 
of  the  speeches  made  at  the  small  but  important 
Conference  of  Single  Taxers  held  in  1910,  clearly 
shows  that  there  is  much  significance  to  be  at- 
tached to  the  declaration  that  the  Commission's 
activities  lay  not  in  propagandizing  the  country, 
but  in  political  work.  The  political  work  referred 
to  is  aiding  the  movement  for  the  Initiative  and  . 
Referendum  throughout  the  country,  as  the  best 
means  of  securing  the  Single  Tax.  Mr.  Jackson, 
H.  Ralston,  of  Washington,  D.  C.,  said  at  the 
Conference :  "  As  for  Direct  Legislation,  it  bears 
to  Single  Tax  as  close  a  relation  as  a  lock  does  to 
the  door."  (P.  17.)  Mr.  Lincoln  Steffens,  the 
well-known  writer  and  Single  Taxer,  was  frank 
enough  to  confess:  "They  knew  what  they 
wanted  and  went  to  work  to  get  it  without  mak- 
ing any  unnecessary  noise  about  it."  (P.  21.) 
Mr.  W.  S.  U'Ren,  the  man  who  won  Oregon  for, 
the  Initiative  and  Referendum,  and  through  it 
has  "cleared  the  way"  for  the  Single  Tax,  —  in- 
cidentally against  the  will  of  the  majority  of  the 
people  of  Oregon— is  also  delightfully  frank,  in 
the  privacy  of  the  Conference.  (P.  21.) 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  53 

Some  of  the  old-line  orthodox  Single  Tax- 
ers  —  those  who  believe  in  a  straight-out  fight  for 
principles  —  do  not  approve  of  the  methods  of 
the  Fels  Fund  Commission.  The  Report  of  the 
Conference  says  (P.  10):  "Some  criticism  has 
been  made  of  the  Commission's  expenditure  of 
money  for  the  Initiative  and  Referendum.77  A 
number  of  letters  of  criticism  were  read,  but  the 
late  Tom  L.  Johnson,  of  Cleveland,  "endorsed 
the  work  done  and  the  expenditures  made  outside 
of  i straight  Single  Tax  propaganda.'  "  (P.  17.) 
One  critic,  Mr.  E.  L.  Heydecker,  of  New  York, 
was  bold  enough  to  openly  oppose  the  Initiative 
and  Referendum.  (P.  19.)  The  editor  of  the 
"Single  Tax  Review",  feared  "entangling  alli- 
ances, also  the  danger  of  diverting  our  own  prop- 
agandists to  Direct  Legislation  rather  than  to 
our  own  great  principle."  He  quoted  Mr.  Fels 
in  support  of  his  contention  that  the  clear  agita- 
tion for  the  taxation  of  land  values  would  bring 
about  Direct  Legislation  quicker  than  anything 
else."  (P.  19-20.)  Mr.  Fels  admitted  this,  but 
he  was  willing  to  leave  the  matter  of  methods  to 
the  Commission;  and  he  said:  "I  now  offer  to 
duplicate  every  dollar  that  these  gentlemen  will 
raise  for  any  work  they  want  to  do  in  their  own 
way,  and  I  don't  expect  any  takers  on  that  propo- 
sition." (P.  20.)  (This  offer,  it  should  be  borne 


64  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

in  mind,  was  in  addition  to  his  other  munificent 
contributions  to  the  Commission.) 

The  "Public"  of  Chicago  is  an  official  organ 
of  the  Single  Taxers,  and  is  subsidized  by  the 
Fels  Fund  Commission.  There  are  three  items 
recorded  in  the  Report  of  monies  received  by  and 
in  behalf  of  the  "Public"  from  the  Fels  Fund  :- 
one  of  $2,437.80,  by  Emil  Schmied,  for  "exploita- 
tion of  'Public,'  "  Jan.  1  to  October  31,  1910  (p. 
31);  the  second,  of  $1,494.10  to  "sustention 
fund,"  (p.  34)  ;  the  third,  of  $1,434.73  (p.  34)  ;  - 
making  a  total  of  $5,366.63  for  1909-10.  On  July 
-.28,  1911,  the  "Public"  confessed  that  Single 
Taxers  "realize  that  it  is  by  means  of  the  Initia- 
tive and  Referendum,  and  only  so,  that  the  work 
of  Henry  George  can  be  consummated." 

MONEY  GALORE. 

In  the  Initiative  -  Referendum  -  Single  -  Tax 
campaign  in  Oregon  up  to  December  1, 1910,  the 
Fels  Fund  Commission  spent  $16,775.  (P.  3.) 
"It  was  unanimously  agreed  that  the  appropria- 
tion for  the  work  in  Oregon  from  December  1, 
1910,  to  November  30, 1911,  be  $12,000."  (P.  26.) 

In  1910  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  cam- 
paign in  Missouri  was  "assisted"  to  the  extent 
of  $800.  (P.  3.) 

"The  cost  of  the  Rhode  Island  campaign  to 
December  1,  1910,"  under  Mr.  John  Z,  White, 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  55 

of  Chicago,  (the  same  gentleman  who  has  been 
in  Ohio),  was  $1,514.93.  (P.  4.)  Mr.  White  was 
in  New  Mexico,  "with  a  successful  result;"  also 
in  Arizona  and  Colorado.  "Arrangements  were 
made  with  John  Z.  White  by  which  his  contract 
with  the  Commission  is  extended  at  least  another 
year  from  July  1,  1911,  with  the  hope  that  the 
contract  may  be  made  permanent,  co-equal  with 
the  life  of  the  Commission."  (P.  27.)  On  page 
27  there  is  also  this  significant  item:  "Fred  C. 
Howe  and  Bolton  Hall  were  appointed  to  take 
up  with  Mr.  Byron  Holt  a  suggestion  he  made  to 
Mr.  Joseph  Fels  to  furnish  speakers  for  Granges 
on  Land  Value  Taxation,  and  if  their  enquiry 
should  prompt  a  recommendation  of  Mr.  Holt's 
plan,  their  advice  was  to  be  considered  the  advice 
of  the  Commission."  In  this  connection  it  is 
worth  recalling  that  at  the  National  Convention 
of  Granges  held  at  Columbus,  O.,  in  November, 
1911,  although  several  enthusiasts  were  present 
from  the  West  in  behalf  of  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  and  the  Single  Tax,  neither  of  these 
propositions  was  endorsed. 

Contributions  totalling  $1,391.28  were  made 
to  the  work  in  Arizona,  Colorado  and  New  Mex- 
ico ;  and  $282.32  to  that  in  Arkansas.  (P.  4.) 

Among  the  receipts  by  the  Commission  in 
1909-10  was  a  donation  of  $5,000  from  Mr. 
Joseph  Fels  to  Bolton  Hall,  of  New  York ;  and 


56  INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDTJM. 

another  of  $30,000  from  the  same  gentleman  to 
the  late  Mr.  Tom  L.  Johnson,  of  Cleveland,  O. 
(P.  30.) 

Under  the  head  of  "general  activities,"  there 
is  an  item  of  the  disbursement  by  Mr.  Johnson  of 
$3,295.42  to  the  "Ohio  Direct  Legislation 
League."  (P.  31.)  There  is  a  paragraph  on 
page  4  which  explains  that  this  amount  was  spent 
for  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  movement  in 
Ohio  in  1909,  "with  barren  results  as  far  as 
legislative  action  was  concerned."  Who  got  this 
money?  For  what  purpose  was  it  used?  These 
are  legitimate  questions. 

Referring  to  his  munificent  contributions  to 
the  Single  Tax  movement,  Mr.  Fels  spoke  indif- 
ferently of  them,  as  if  it  was  only  a  small  matter 
to  him,  and  with  magnificent  contempt  he  ex- 
claimed—so reads  the  official  report— "Damn 
the  money!"  (P.  13)  It  seems,  according  to  Mr. 
Fels'  admission,  that  it  was  Mr.  Daniel  Kiefer, 
of  Cincinnati,  who  first  interested  him  in  the  Sin- 
gle-Tax movement.  Mr.  Fels  tells  with  simple 
naivete  that  it  was  Mr.  Kiefer's  "knowledge  of 
what  we  wanted  and  how  to  get  it  that  brought 
Mr.  Fels  under  his  influence."  (P.  16.)  Mr. 
Kiefer  is  Chairman  of  the  Commission.  During 
the  Conference  he  was  praised  as  "a  national 
money  raiser."  (P.  16.) 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDUM.  57 

In  a  supplementary  statement  issued  by  the 
Commission  (undated)  to  subscribers,  the  in- 
'f  ormation  is  given  that  Mr.  Joseph  Pels  is  giv- 
ing $25,000  a  year  to  the  Commission  and  that 
he  "  offers  to  give  $50,000  or  $100,000  a  year, 
and  even  more,  if  the  Single  Taxers  of  the 
United  States  will  contribute  that  amount."  The 
condition  has  been  met.  On  November  25,  1911, 
the  Cincinnati  " Enquirer"  published  a  tele- 
graphic news  item  from  Chicago,  in  reference  to 
a  meeting  of  the  Single  Tax  advocates  and  the 
Fels  Fund  Commission;  and  it  said:  " Accord- 
ing to  the  terms  of  the  Joseph  Fels  Fund,  all 
money  raised  for  five  years  for  the  purpose  of 
testing  the  Single  Tax  plan  will  be  duplicated 
from  the  fund.  Chairman  Daniel  Kiefer,  of 
Cincinnati,  announced  that  about  $100,000 
already  had  been  raised."  As  Mr.  Fels  has 
agreed  to  duplicate  the  contributions,  dollar  for 
dollar,  he  will  give  another  $100,000,  making  a 
total  of  at  least  $200,000  available  for  the  Initia- 
tive-Referendum-Single-Tax campaign  of  1912. 

THE   STANDARD  AMERICAN   AUTHORITY. 

"The  Referendum  in  America"  is  the  stan- 
dard work  on  the  subject.  Its  author  is  Prof. 
Ellis  Paxson  Oberholtzer,  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania.  After  giving  an  exhaustive  his- 
tory of  Direct  Legislation  in  America,  and  critic- 


58  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

ally  examining  its  operations  and  effects,  lie 
comes  to  this  conclusion  (Edition  of  1900) : 

"  *  *  *  Though  the  evils  of  the 
representative  system  are  admittedly 
great  the  fact  must  be  kept  in  mind 
that  direct  legislation  by  the  people 
is  also  attended  by  abuses  of  a  very 
serious  kind.  So  far  as  our  experi- 
ence has  already  gone  in  the  United 
States  a  number  of  glaring  defects 
have  been  exhibited  by  the  people  in 
their  role  as  law-makers.  The  most 
impressive  of  these  is  their  strange 
apathy  even  in  the  face  of  great  is- 
sues. They  as  a  mass  have  so  little 
interest  in  legislative  subjects  that 
only  a  small  percentage  will  attend 
the  polls  for  special  elections  and  at 
general  elections  when  individual 
candidates  are  to  be  chosen,  though 
the  propositions  be  printed  on  the 
same  ballots  with  the  names  of  the 
candidates,  a  large  proportion  of  the 
voters  will  not  put  themselves  to  the 
slight  trouble  of  placing  a  pencil 
mark  under  the  word  "yes"  or  "no." 
The  conclusion  is  unavoidable  that 
the  people  considered  as  a  body  do 
not  know  anything,  nor  do  they  care 
anything  about  the  merits  or  demerits 
of  a  particular  law.  They  may  know 
little  in  the  opinion  of  most  of  us 
about  the  respective  merits  of  candi- 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  59 

dates  for  representative  offices.  For 
one  reason  or  another,  the  people  still 
have  enough  interest  in  this  subject 
to  record  their  preferences.  It  is  true 
that  the  largest  possible  vote  is  never 
polled  for  candidates,  but,  speaking 
roughly,  twice  as  many  electors  vote 
for  individuals  as  vote  for  measures. 
Furthermore,  very  strange  popular 
idiosyncrasies  are  developed  at  elec- 
tions on  propositions.  When  several 
are  submitted  at  the  same  time  all 
are  likely  to  be  defeated,  or  else  all 
adopted.  There  seems  to  be  little 
capacity  for  discrimination.  Again 
very  radical  measures  and  many  in- 
deed of  dangerous  tendencies  are  not 
always  rejected  by  the  people,  or  if 
they  are  there  are  not  a  few  cases  in 
which  this  result  seems  to  have  been 
brought  about  by  accident  rather 
than  by  serious  moral  purpose.  It  is 
easy  to  see  on  a  most  cursory  exami- 
nation that  under  such  circumstances 
the  people  are  very  far  from  being  an 
ideal  body  of  law-makers. " 

There  has  been  issued  a  new  and  revised 
edition  of  "The  Referendum  in  America, "  by 
Dr.  Oberholtzer,  dated  August,  1911.  In  the 
preface  to  this  edition,  the  author  makes  a  dig- 
nified protest  against  his  work  being  ' '  quoted  as 
favorable  to  a  system  of  direct  government  in 


60  INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDUM. 

America."  In  supplementary  chapters  covering 
the  years  from  1900  to  1911  he  makes  himself 
clear  that  he  is  decidedly  opposed  to  the  new- 
fangled Initiative,  Referendum  and  Recall,  as 
the  following  excerpts  will  show : 

He  speaks  of  the  movement  in  Oregon  as  a 
"  current  of  folly/'  a  checking  of  which,  he  notes, 
is  indicated  by  the  vote  on  the  32  propositions  in 
1910.  In  introducing  his  statement  of  the  Re- 
call he  says :  "To  complete  the  work  of  destruc- 
tion which  the  direct  government  agitators  have 
in  hand,  nothing  was  needed  but  the  right  to 
organize  a  party  to  turn  duly  designated  officials 
out  of  place  and  to  set  up  others  in  their  stead. 
*  *  *  If  the  legislature  is  to  go,  then,  why 
not  the  Governor  and  the  courts  also?"  "In 
Oregon,"  he  says,  further  on,  "where  all  is  fluid 
and  the  perfectionists  are  at  work  endeavoring  to 
make  themselves  the  citizens  of  a  new  Arcadia, 
the  use  of  the  recall  is  becoming  frequent." 
Again  referring  to  Oregon,  Prof.  Oberholtzer 
directs  attention  to  the  fact  that  "any  charlatan, 
if  he  can  obtain  enough  signers  to  his  petition, 
can  bring  forward  a  plan  for  changing  the  Con- 
stitution. *  *  *  The  tinker  is  always  busy,  and 
the  fruit  of  his  activity  is  a  deranged  body  of 
provisions— a  confused,  inconsistent  code  which 
bears  no  relation,  except  in  the  extremes  of  its 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  61 

variance,  to  the  Constitution  of  a  more  estima- 
ble period  in  American  history." 

In  South  Dakota— according  to  the  statement 
of  the  Governor  of  that  State— ten  cents  a  name 
are  paid  to  signers  to  a  Referendum  Petition, 
but  it  seems,  that  "in  Portland  (Ore.)  there  is 
an  organization  which  contracts  to  provide  sig- 
natures to  initiative  and  referendum  petitions  at 
regular  published  rates— three  to  five  cents  per 
name." 

Minority  Rule  under  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  is  thus  stated  by  Prof.  Oberholtzer : 

"The  defence  is  properly  set  up 
for  a  representative  form  of  govern- 
ment with  a  division  of  powers,  that 
it  protects  the  rights  of  minorities. 
The  majority  of  the  people  may  not 
directly  attack  the  interests  of  the 
minority.  Yet  in  the  use  of  the  in- 
itiative, the  referendum  and  the  recall 
what  is  seen  ?  The  minority  often  ab- 
solutely controls  the  majority.  In- 
deed it  seems  to  be  assumed  that  this 
is  their  right." 

As  to  the  effect  of  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum and  the  Recall  on  public  officers,  and  the 
Legislature,  as  contrasted  with  the  results  of  our 
Representative  system,  he  says : 


62  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

"Men  like  Washington  and  Lin- 
coln, Daniel  Webster,  Henry  Clay 
and  John  C.  Calhoun,  were  not  the 
products  of  any  political  system  in 
which  bodies  of  mediocre  men  with 
hobbies  robbed  the  legislature  of  its 
dignity  and  authority,  and  subjected 
executive,  legislative  and  judicial  of- 
ficers to  the  fear  of  recall  when  they 
pursued  a  course  distasteful  to  some 
fraction  of  the  electorate.  Only 
timid,  shambling,  ineffective  men  can 
come  out  of  a  system  which  strips 
public  office  of  character  and  author- 
ity and  makes  it  directly  subservient 
to  popular  whim." 

And  the  concluding  sentences  of  this  new  edi- 
tion of  the  "Referendum  in  America "  are  a  com- 
bined condemnation  and  prophecy: 

"It  (direct  legislation)  is  in  con- 
flict with  the  spirit  and  traditions  of 
our  political  system,  as  will  soon  be 
perceived  by  growing  numbers  of 
men.  While  the  people  are  subject  to 
sudden  impulse  and  at  times  commit 
the  most  serious  mistakes  they  have 
seldom  erred  through  years  in  the 
long  run  on  the  question  of  great 
fundamental  principles.  When  they 
come  to  understand  the  purposes  of 
these  *  reforms',  and  can  see  beyond 
the  present  to  the  end,  it  is  safe  to 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  63 

predict  that  there  will  be  a  read- 
justment of  opinion  as  radical  as  the 
movement  by  which  our  standards 
have  been  so  ruthlessly  deranged/' 

HON.  JAMES  BRYCE  ON   DIRECT  LEGISLATION. 

Hon.  James  Bryce,  the  British  Ambassador 
to  the  United  States,  has  a  very  interesting  chap- 
ter in  his  incomparable  work,  "The  American 
Commonwealth/'  on  Direct  Legislation.  He 
notes  the  tendencies  of  the  American  people  to 
distrust  their  Legislatures,  and  "to  seize  such 
chances  as  occurred  of  making  laws  for  them- 
selves in  their  own  way;"  and  he  adds:  "Con- 
currently with  the  growth  of  these  tendencies 
there  had  been  a  decline  in  the  quality  of  the 
State  legislature,  and  of  the  legislation  which 
they  turned  out."  According  to  Mr.  Bryce,  each 
of  these  tendencies  re-acted  upon  the  other.  He 
proceeds  to  say : 

"What  are  the  practical  advan- 
tages of  this  plan  of  direct  legislation 
by  the  people?  Its  demerits  are 
obvious.  Besides  those  I  have  al- 
ready stated,  it  tends  to  lower  the  au- 
thority and  sense  of  responsibility  in 
the  legislature ;  and  it  refers  matters 
needing  much  elucidation  by  debate 
to  the  determination  of  those  who 
cannot,  on  account  of  their  numbers, 


64  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

meet  together  for  discussion,  and 
many  of  whom  have  never  thought 
about  the  matter.  These  considera- 
tions will  to  most  Europeans  appear 
decisive  against  it.  The  proper 
course,  they  will  say,  is  to  improve 
the  legislatures.  The  less  you  trust 
them,  the  worse  they  will  be.  They 
may  be  ignorant ;  yet  not  so  ignorant 
as  the  masses."  -  (P.  453,  2nd  ed. 
Am.  Com.) 

Mr.  Bryce  goes  on  to  say  that  he  regards  the 
Referendum — as  it  then  existed— "  as  being 
rather  a  bit  and  bridle  than  a  spur"  on  the  Legis- 
lature ;  and  he  concludes  by  saying  that  the  sys- 
tem, "  liable  as  it  doubtless  is  to  abuse,  causes  in 
the  present  condition  of  the  States,  fewer  evils 
than  it  prevents." 

Because  of  these  conclusions  by  Mr.  Bryce 
as  to  the  operation  of  a  very  qualified  form  of  the 
Referendum,  it  is  sometimes  claimed  by  reck- 
less enthusiasts  that  he  has  given  the  authority 
of  his  great  name  in  favor  of  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  as  now  operated,  say  in  Oregon. 
This  claim  has  no  warrant.  What  Mr.  Bryce  was 
referring  to  was  not  the  new  Initiative  and  Ref- 
erendum at  all,  but  the  historic  American  system 
of  referring  to  the  people  Constitutional  Amend- 
ments and  Statutory  Acts  which  had  been  duly 
scrutinized,  debated  and  passed  with  all  the  tra- 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  65 

ditionary  safeguards,  either  by  a  Convention 
or  a  Legislature.  He  could  not  have  referred  to 
the  Initiative  in  any  way.  The  second  edition 
of  the  "  American  Commonwealth,"  —  from 
which  the  above  extracts  are  taken— was  pub- 
lished in  1889.  The  first  State  to  adopt  the  Ini- 
tiative was  South  Dakota;  that  was  not  until 
1898,  and  it  only  applied  to  Statute  Laws.  The 
first  State  to  apply  the  Initiative  to  Constitution- 
al Amendments  was  Oregon,  and  that  was  not 
until  1902. 

In  the  new  edition  (1910)  of  the  "  American 
Commonwealth,"  Mr.  Bryce  maintains  his  for- 
mer cautiousness  as  to  expressing  any  definite 
opinion  on  the  subject,— but  what  he  does  say 
must  be  considered  adverse.  After  remarking 
upon  the  inconclusiveness  of  the  results  of  the 
American  experiments,  he  goes  on  to  say:  "Nor 
does  the  experience  of  Switzerland  furnish  much 
guidance,  so  dissimilar  are  the  social  conditions 
and  the  political  habits  of  the  two  nations."  Of 
the  Referendum,  he  says  that  it  is  "troublesome 
and  costly  to  take  the  votes  of  millions  of  peo- 
ple." Speaking  of  the  lack  of  responsibility 
and  authority  on  the  part  of  American  State 
Legislatures,  he  observes,  in  this  last  edition: 
"The  Initiative  is  a  supersession  of  the  Legis- 
lature which  tends  even  more  to  reduce  its  au- 
thority." (P.  479.)  He  urges  that  further 


66  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

time  and  tests  must  be  had  before  judgment  can 
be  pronounced  as  to  the  working  of  these  new 
expedients ;  and  he  prints  prominently  this  very 
significant  special  Note  to  the  Edition  of  1910 
on  " Recent  Tendencies  in  State  Politics,"  he 
referring  to  the  disposition  of  Americans  to 
blame  and  to  be  impatient  with  their  Legisla- 
tures: 

"Such  impatience  is  not  always 
justified,  for  the  masses  sometimes 
expect  from  legislation  benefits  which 
no  legislation  can  give  and  blame 
their  representatives  when  the  fault 
lies  not  in  the  latter  but  in  the  nature 
of  things.  But  the  people  will  in  try- 
ing to  do  themselves  the  work  they 
desire  to  have  done  doubtless  come  to 
learn  in  time  how  much  harder  that 
work  is  than  they  had  believed,  and 
how  much  more  skill  it  needs  than 
either  they  or  their  legislators  have 
yet  acquired." 

WOODROW  WILSON  AND  THE  I.  &  R.* 

Prof.  Woodrow  Wilson,  speaking  as  Presi- 
dent of  Princeton  University,  at  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  Civic  League  of  St.  Louis,  Mo.> 
March  9,  1909,  said: 

"You  know  we  have  heard  a  great 
deal  recently  about  the  government  of 

*  It  is  fair  to  Professor  Wilson  to  say  tha.t  the  newspapers  re- 
port that  he  has  recently  changed  his  opinion, 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  67 

the  country  by  the  people  of  the  coun- 
try, and  I  must  say  that  it  seems  to 
me  we  have  been  talking  a  great  deal 
of  nonsense.  A  government  can  be 
democratic  only  in  the  sense  that  it 
is  a  government  restrained,  controlled 
by  public  opinion.  It  can  never  be  a 
government  conducted  by  public 
opinion.  What  I  mean  to  say  is  this : 
that  POPULAR  INITIATIVE  IS 
AN  INCONCEIVABLE  THING! 

"  *  *  *  You  say  that  your  legis- 
latures do  not  represent  you  —  and 
sometimes,  I  dare  say,  they  do  not, 
though  I  think  they  are  generally  just 
as  good  as  you  deserve  —  and  there- 
fore, you  say,  let  us  directly  vote  upon 
the  measures  which  they  vote  upon. 
Do  you  not  see  that  this  is  simply 
adding  another  piece  of  machinery 
which,  after  you  cease  to  be  interested 
in  it,  is  going  to  be  used  by  the  same 
set  of  persons  for  the  same  objects? 
If  you  do  not  see  it,  you  will  see  it 
after  you  have  tried  it  awhile." 

(The  above  speech  is  reprinted  in  full  in 
Cong.  Record,  August  19,  1911.) 

Prof.  Woodrow  Wilson  has  also  committed 
himself  unequivocally  in  writing  to  condemna- 
tion of  the  Initiative  and  Referendum.  In  "The 
State"  (Rev.  ed,,  1898,  pp.  311,  313)  and  in 


68  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

"  Constitutional  Government  in  the  United 
States"  (pp.  104,  188-191)  this  learned  author- 
ity said : 

"The  vote  upon  most  measures 
submitted  to  the  ballot  is  usually  very 
light ;  there  is  not  popular  discussion, 
and  the  referendum  by  no  means 
creates  that  quick  interest  in  affairs 
which  its  originators  had  hoped  to  see 
it  excite.  It  has  dulled  the  sense  of 
responsibility  among  legislators  with- 
out, in  fact,  quickening  the  people  to 
the  exercise  of  any  real  control  in 
affairs.  *  V  *  Where  it  (the  Initia- 
tive) has  been  employed  it  has  not 
promised  either  progress  or  enlight- 
enment, leading  rather  to  doubtful 
experiments  and  to  reactionary  dis- 
plays of  prejudice  than  to  really  use- 
ful legislation.  *  *  *  A  government 
must  have  organs;  it  cannot  act  in- 
organically by  masses.  It  must  have 
a  law-making  body;  it  can  no  more 
make  laws  through  its  voters  than  it 
can  make  law  through  its  news- 
papers. ' '  (  Quoted  in  the  1911  edition 
of  Oberholtzer's  "Referendum  in 
America.") 

JWO  GREAT  FALLACIES. 

There  are  two  great  fallacies  underlying  the 
theory  of  the  Initiative  and  Referendum:— 
(1)    That  a  community  which,  through  in- 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  69 

difference,  incompetency,  or  corruption,  fails  to 
elect  honest  and  capable  Legislative  Representa- 
tives, will  wisely  perform  the  infinitely  more 
complex  and  delicate  function  of  passing  Laws 
directly. 

(2)  That  the  necessity  for  Laws  being  skill- 
fully drawn,  carefully  scrutinized,  and  thorough- 
ly debated,  considered  and  formulated,  before 
being  presented  for  passage,  can  be  ignored. 

From  these  fallacies  follow  the  inevitable 
evils  which  condemn  the  system  as  being  un- 
sound and  even  vicious,  both  logically  and  as  the 
results  of  actual  experience. 


Switzerland's  Experience. 


"CIRCUMSTANCES  ALTER  CASES." 

Another  fallacy  of  the  advocates  of  Direct 
Legislation  is  the  assumption  that  what  might 
suit  one  community  under  certain  conditions 
and  surrounded  by  certain  environments,  would 
necessarily  suit  all  other  communities.  "Sam 
Slick's"  Old  Judge  never  gave  utterance  to  a 
more  profound  dictum  than  that  "circum- 
stances alter  cases."  But  the  Initiative-Refer- 
endumites  ignore  this  universal  judicial  and 
political  experience.  They  say:  The  Initiative 
and  Referendum  is  a  success  in  Switzerland;  — 
atlhough  (speaking  in  a  merely  incidental  man- 
ner), it  is  not  —  therefore  it  would  be  a  success 
in  America.  That  does  not  necessarily  follow. 
But- 

In  the  first  place,  the  alleged  success  of  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum  in  Switzerland  is  a 
very  open  question  at  the  best.  In  the  past,  the 
simple  Referendum,  under  conditions  which  then 
existed,  and  in  the  absence  of  any  historic  train- 
ing in  the  Representative  system  as  we  under- 
stand it  in  America,  has  undoubtedly  served  a 
satisfactory  purpose  in  securing  a  popular  demo- 

70 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  71 

cratic  government.  But  social  and  economic 
conditions  are  now  changing  in  Switzerland,  as 
elsewhere,  and  it  is  now  being  found  that  the 
Referendum  is  no  longer  as  beneficially  effective 
as  it  was  when  the  simple-minded  graziers  and 
small  peasant  proprietors  held  the  government 
of  the  Republic  in  the  hollow  of  their  hands. 

As  to  the  Initiative  —  nothing  good  can  be 
said  of  it.  The  experience  with  the  Federal 
Initiative  during  the  score  of  years  it  has  been 
in  operation  has  not  only  been  disappointing 
and  unsatisfactory,  but  it  has  caused  grave  fears 
in  the  minds  of  some  of  the  most  enlightened 
and  patriotic  statesmen  of  Switzerland  that  it 
may  cause  the  destruction  of  the  Republic  as  a 
well-governed  and  orderly  democracy. 

But  even  though  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum were  a  success  in  Switzerland,  —  which 
it  is  not  —  that  would  not  be  proof  that  it  is 
adapted  to  America,  with  its  entirely  different 
history  and  traditions,  its  different  geograph- 
ical, social,  economic,  commercial  and  political 
conditions,  —  and  also  its  very  different  system 
of  government,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
both  countries  are  Republics. 

PROF.  OBERHOLTZER'S  WARNING. 

In  concluding  his  masterly  work,  "The 
Referendum  in  America,"  Prof.  Oberholtzer 


72  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

utters  this  warning  against  looking  to  Switzer- 
land or  any  other  foreign  country  for  political 
experiments,  instead  of  to  our  own  history  and 
experience,  —  and  he  is  speaking  with  special 
reference  to  the  Initiative  and  Referendum: 


«  *  *  *  j^  until  we  are  convinced 
that  the  evils  which  have  developed 
in  our  political  life,  and  which  are 
putting  the  virtue  of  our  civil  insti- 
tutions to  so  sore  a  test,  are  induced 
by  the  system  rather  than  by  the  in- 
herent shortcomings  of  men  in  democ- 
racies, should  we  be  willing  to  turn 
from  the  course  which  history  and  ex- 
perience have  marked  out  for  us.  To 
inject  into  our  heritage  to-day,  prin- 
ciples and  political  forms  which  trace 
another  lineage,  would  result  no  more 
happily  than  the  French  effort  at  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  dis- 
card history,  and  lay  the  foundations 
of  the  future  on  strange  lines.  Every 
empirical  sentiment,  and  all  the 
teachings  of  modern  science,  combine 
to  bring  home  to  reasoning  men  this 
one  great  fact  which  will  live  as  long 
as  the  world  lasts  and  human  govern- 
ment endures." 

WHY  SWITZERLAND  ADOPTED  THE   I.  &  R. 

Prof.    A.    Lawrence   Lowell,    President    of 
Harvard  University,  is  recognized  in  Europe  as 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  73 

in  this  country  as  one  of  the  leading  and  most 
trustworthy  of  American  authorities  on  for- 
eign governments  and  political  parties.  In  his 
"Governments  and  Parties  in  Continental 
Europe "  he  explains  how  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  became  fixed  in  the  governmental 
system  of  Switzerland.  He  says  it  was  because 
of  the  lack  of  a  native  representative  system. 
It  is  curious  that  in  Switzerland,  almost  alone 
among  the  countries  north  of  the  Alps,  repre- 
sentative government  did  not  rise  spontaneously. 
The  delegates  to  the  Diet  of  the  Old  Confedera- 
tion were  not  representatives,  but  were  like 
ambassadors,  and  they  could  not  finally  decide 
questions,  but  had  to  report  to  their  States.  The 
delegates  were  commissioned  simply  to  hear 
propositions,  and  to  take  them  "ad  referendum," 
that  is,  they  had  to  refer  them  to  their  Cantonal 
authorities,  and  report  the  opinion  of  the  latter 
on  the  matter  to  the  next  session  of  the  Diet, 
unless  the  Canton  instructed  its  deputies  to 
take  it  again  "ad  referendum."  The  modern 
form  is  different,  but  Prof.  Lowell  says  that 
the  real  foundation  of  the  belief  in  the  right  of 
the  people  to  take  a  direct  part  in  legislation, 
lay  in  the  defective  condition  of  the  representa- 
tive system.  Nor  is  this  surprising.  Up  to  the 
end  of  the  last  century  the  Swiss  had  no  experi- 
ence of  representative  government.  The  result 


74  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

was  that  when  representative  institutions  were 
copied  from  other  countries  after  the  French 
Revolution,  the  Swiss  were  not  accustomed  to 
them,  and  met  with  two  difficulties.  In  the  first 
place,  they  did  not  know  how  to  provide  the 
necessary  checks  and  balances,  and  they  set  up 
single  chambers  with  absolute  powers;  and,  in 
the  second  place,  they  had  not  learned  to  make 
those  chambers  reflect  public  opinion. 

PROF.  LOWELL'S  ADVERSE  OPINION. 

While  Prof.  Lowell  gives  a  guarded  approval 
of  the  Referendum  under  Swiss  conditions,  he 
emphatically  condemns  the  Initiative  even  in 
that  country.  He  says:  "The  Initiative  has 
not  been  established  in  the  Confederation  a 
sufficient  length  of  time  to  test  its  real  impor- 
tance, but  it  has  not  been  found  effective  even 
for  ordinary  laws,  in  the  Cantons  where  it  has 
long  existed.  *  *  *  It  is  certain  that  the  new 
Federal  Initiative  in  its  actual  form  has  been 
the  cause  of  great  anxiety." 

After  a  most  exhaustive  study  and  examina- 
tion, Prof.  Lowell  comes  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  Initiative  in  practice  "has  not  proved  of 
value.  *  *  *  The  conception  is  bold,  but  it  is  not 
likely  to  be  of  any  great  use  to  mankind;  if  in- 
deed, it  does  not  prove  to  be  merely  a  happy 
hunting-ground  for  extremists  and  fanatics." 


AND  REFERENDUM.  75 

As  to  the  use  of  the  Referendum  and  Initia- 
tive in  America,  Prof.  Lowell  says  that  the 
Referendum  applied  to  ordinary  statutes  is  in- 
consistent with  our  polity,  and  could  not  be  en- 
grafted without  altering  its  very  nature.  "The 
Referendum  in  America  would  impose  on  the 
voters  a  far  more  difficult  task  than  it  does  in 
Switzerland.  *  *  *  The  Initiative  has  not  been  a 
success  even  in  Switzerland,  and  there  is  no  rea- 
son to  suppose  it  would  work  better  elsewhere/' 

HOW  SWITZERLAND  DIFFERS  FROM  THE   U.  S. 

On  April  14,  1911,  the  American  Minister  to 
Switzerland,  Hon.  Lauritz  S.  Swenson,  wrote  a 
most  informative  letter  to  the  Hon.  James  A. 
Tawney,  of  Minnesota,  descriptive  of  the  condi- 
tions in  Switzerland,  and  explanatory  o  f  the 
workings  of  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  in 
that  country.  (Republished  in  the  Cong.  Rec- 
ord, Aug.  19,  1911.)  He  thus  shows  the  great 
difference  between  the  Swiss  and  the  American 
systems  of  government: 

"It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind 
that  the  national  legislature  elects  the 
Federal  Executive  (the  President)  as 
well  as  the  Federal  judiciary,  and 
that  no  veto  power  can  be  exercised 
by  the  Executive,  nor  can  any  judic- 
ial power  question  the  constitution- 


76  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM 


of  its  statutes.  The  Executive, 
not  being  elected  by  the  people,  can- 
not as  their  direct  representative  be 
expected  to  counterbalance  the  power 
of  the  legislature,  which  elects  him. 
Only  by  means  of  the  referendum,  or 
'  people's  veto,7  can  a  negative  be  in- 
terposed. This  is  the  situation  also  in 
the  Cantons." 

"  Conditions  in  Switzerland  differ 
widely  from  ours  socially,  commer- 
cially, industrially,  politically,  and 
geographically.  Here  is  an  estab- 
lished society  extending  back  over 
hundreds  of  years.  Institutions  are 
more  stable,  and  the  people  are  more 
conservative  and  cautious  by  training 
and  tradition.  The  population  is 
largely  composed  of  rural  freehold- 
ers, and  there  is  not  a  continuous  in- 
flux of  immigrants  of  all  kinds  who 
in  short  order  become  voters.  Natur- 
alization is  not  easily  acquired  in 
Switzerland.  To  become  a  citizen  of 
the  Confederation  a  foreigner  must 
be  admitted  to  citizenship  ip  the  com- 
mune and  the  Canton.  The  com- 
munes possess  property,  the  proceeds 
from  which  are  distributed  in  some 
way  or  other  among  its  citizens.  An 
applicant  for  the  privilege  of  becom- 
ing a  i  burger7  must  accordingly  pay 
for  it  —  in  most  cases  quite  a  respect- 
able amount.  He  then  feels  that  he 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  77 

has  a  property  interest  in  the  com- 
munity, and  will  naturally  help  to 
safe-guard  it  against  any  radical  in- 
terference. *  *  *  Political  questions 
are  less  complex,  and  the  voters  have 
closer  personal  knowledge  of  the  con- 
ditions under  discussion,  owing  to  the 
smallness  of  the  country.  The  voters 
are,  as  a  rule,  more  conservative  than 
their  legislators. 

"  Switzerland  has  a  government 
for  a  simple  people  and  a  small  coun- 
try. The  population  of  Switzerland 
is  ca.  3,800,000.  Its  area  is  about 
16,000  square  miles;  that  of  Minne- 
sota ca.  83,000  square  miles." 

MINISTER  SWENSON  POINTS  OUT  DRAWBACKS. 

Minister  Swenson  points  out  the  serious 
drawbacks  to  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  in 
4  the  most  democratic  country  in  Europe "  and 
the  one  country  in  the  world  where  it  ought  to 
be  a  success  if  it  could  be  anywhere.  He  goes 
on  to  say : 

"  Notwithstanding  the  apparently 
favorable  conditions  under  which  the 
Swiss  initiative  and  referendum  have 
operated,  the  practical  workings  of 
the  system  have  brought  out  many 
drawbacks. 

"It  is  said  to  be  the  weapon  in  the 
hands  of  the  minority  to  keep  up  a 


78  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

constant  political  agitation;  and  ow- 
ing to  the  large  abstention  from  vot- 
ing, it  is  not  the  people,  but  a  relative- 
ly small  part  of  the  electoral  body 
that  rejects  or  enacts  a  law.  A  ma- 
jority of  the  legislature,  representing 
a  majority  of  the  electors,  may  pass  a 
law,  and  a  minority  of  the  voters  may, 
on  a  referendum,  defeat  the  expressed 
will  of  the  majority.  And  the  people 
will  time  and  again  reelect  the  law- 
makers whose  measures  they  have 
thus  rejected— and  repeat  the  per- 
formance of  setting  their  work  aside 
by  a  decided  minority  vote.  In  some 
communes  it  has  happened  that  only 
19, 14,  and  as  low  as  10  per  cent  of  the 
voters  have  participated  in  a  referen- 
dum election.  *  *  * 

«*  *  *  jf.  is  nrge(i  against  the  sys- 
tem under  discussion  that  it  is  an  ap- 
peal from  calm  deliberation  to  preju- 
dice, and  spasmodic,  artificial  senti- 
ment. Also  that  the  people  have  not 
the  facilities,  leisure,  or  will  to  study 
legislation  as  a  legislative  body  of 
competent  persons  does.  Then,  too, 
it  lessens  the  sense  of  responsibility 
on  the  part  of  the  legislator." 

COMPULSORY  VOTING  IN  SWITZERLAND. 

As  everywhere  else,  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum means  in  Switzerland  the  Rule  of  the 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  79 

Minority.  It  has  been  suggested  in  America  that 
to  make  the  people  vote  on  propositions,  voting 
should  be  made  compulsory.  This  has  been  tried 
in  Switzerland,  but  it  has  not  been  successful: 
from  20  to  30  per  cent  of  the  voters  cast  blank 
ballots.  The  following  is  from  an  official  report 
to  the  State  Department  from  the  American 
Vice-Consul  at  Berne  (Switzerland),  Leo.  J. 
Frankenthal,  in  1908,  and  presented  to  the 
Senate  by  Mr.  La  Follette,  and  printed  as  Sen. 
Doc.  126,  61st  Cong.,  1st  Sess. : 

"  Voting  is  obligatory  on  Cantonal 
matters  in  the  Cantons  Zurich, 
Schaffhausen,  St.  Gallen,  Aargan, 
and  Thurgau.  These  Cantons  show 
average  votes  of  from  70  to  80  per 
cent;  but  the  obligatory  measure  is 
not  rigorously  enforced.  Small  fines 
are  imposed  upon  people  failing  to 
vote  unless  an  adequate  excuse  is 
made.  This  includes  illness  in  the 
family,  mourning  for  a  relative,  ab- 
sence, birth  in  the  family,  etc.  St. 
Gallen  goes  further  than  its  neighbors 
and  excuses  the  parent  and  god-par- 
ent from  the  duty  of  voting  if  their 
presence  is  necessary  at  a  Christen- 
ing. *  *  *  There  is  considerable  objec- 
tion in  many  parts  of  Switzerland  to 
obligatory  voting.  *  *  *  You  may 
force  a  voter  to  the  polling  place, 


80  INITIATIVE  AND  EEFERENDUM. 

but  you  cannot  prevent  him  from 
casting  !a  blank  or  a  mutilated  ballot. 
This  refers,  naturally,  to  referendum 
measures  and  not  to  the  election  of 
persons.  Let  us  refer  to  the  statistics 
of  the  Canton  of  Zurich,  which  is  the 
most  populous  of  those  in  which  ob- 
ligatory voting  is  in  force.  Of  recent 
laws  voted  upon  in  this  Canton  in  the 
last  few  years  the  following  figures 
are  taken  at  random:  1906,  law  con- 
cerning a  change  in  certain  communal 
boundaries,  10,744  blank  or  mutilated 
ballots  out  of  59,538 ;  law  concerning 
the  right  of  voting,  number  of  inhab- 
itants in  electoral  districts,  etc.,  11,380 
blank  or  mutilated  ballots  out  of  75,- 
504;  law  concerning  protection  of 
game,  5,374  blank  or  mutilated  bal- 
lots out  of  71,933.  .  .  .  There  is 
no  question  but  what  the  Swiss  in 
general  are  fatigued  by  the  frequency 
with  which  they  are  called  to  vote." 
\ 

E.  V.  Raynolds,  in  an  article  in  the  "Yale 
Review,"  November,  1895,  on  "Referendum 
and  Other  Forms  of  Direct  Democracy  in  Swit- 
zerland," says: 

"Many  cantons  declare  voting  a 
,  duty,  and  some  back  up  the  declara- 
tion by  fining  those  who  fail  in  this 
duty.    In  Zurich  this  is  regulated  by 
the  Oornmunes,  so  that  some  of  the 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  81 

citizens  are  free  to  remain  away  from 
the  polls,  while  others  abstain  at  their 
peril.  One  result  of  the  compulsory 
law  is  seen  in  the  large  proportion  of 
blank  ballots  cast.  In  Zurich  it  is 
often  the  case  that  more  than  twenty 
per  cent.,  and  sometimes  more  than 
thirty  per  cent.,  of  the  ballots  are 
blank. " 

The  truth  is  that  the  Swiss  people  are  weary 
of  their  many  elections  under  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum.  There  is  a  saying  in  Switzerland 
that  the  polling-booths  are  open  as  often  as  the 
churches.  Were  it  not  f o^  the  smallness  of  the 
country  and  the  peculiar  social  and  economic 
conditions,  demoralization  or  the  dry-rot  would 
result  from  the  Direct  system  of  government. 

The  London  "  Spectator, "  of  August  25, 
1894,  in  an  article  on  "  Swiss  Referendum  and 
the  People's  Will,"  said: 

" Weighed  by  its  results,  the  'right  of 
initiative'  has  still  to  justify  its  ex- 
istence. True,  it  enables  fifty  thou- 
sand well  meaning  voters  to  propose  a 
new  law  for  the  consideration  of  their 
fellow-citizens;  it  also  enables  fad- 
dists and  fanatics  who  by  hook  or 
crook  can  collect  the  neediul  signa- 
tures, to  advertise  their  schemes  and 
theories  at  the  public  expense.  .  .  . 


82  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

Moreover,  the  multiplication  of  elec- 
tions and  dotations'  is  a  serious  evil. 
*  *  *  The  oftener  people  are  re- 
quired to  vote  the  less  disposed  they 
seem  to  profit  by  the  privilege." 

Compulsory  voting  failing  to  bring  out  the 
people,  a  new  scheme  is  being  tried.  M.  W. 
Hazeltine,  in  an  article  in  the  "North  American 
Review",  May  17,  1907,  says: 

"In  two  of  the  cantons  an  effort 
has  been  made  to  bring  about  serious 
discussion  by  providing  that,  when 
citizens  meet  at  the  polls,  a  debate 
shall  take  place  before  the  voting  be- 
gins. It  is  noticed,  however,  that 
when  the  presiding  officer  asks  if  any 
one  wishes  to  speak,  no  one  ever  re- 
sponds. In  other  words,  you  can 
bring  a  horse  to  the  water,  but  you 
can't  make  him  drink." 


«  *  *  *  j]ven  jn  ^Q  cantons,  where 
it  has  long  existed,  and  is  applicable 
even  to  ordinary  laws,  it  has  not  been 
found  effective. 

"  *  *  *  Certainly  it  has  not  yet 
developed  much  efficiency  in  Switzer- 
land. *  *  *  The  conception  of  the 
initiative  may  be  bold,  but  those  who 
have  observed  the  institution  longest 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  83 

and  studied  it  most  carefully  pro- 
nounce it  unlikely  to  be  of  any  great 
use  to  mankind. " 

WHAT  A   BELGIAN    ECONOMIST  SAYS. 

Twenty  years  ago  the  Belgian  Chamber 
(Parliament)  considered  the  advisability  of  es- 
tablishing the  Swiss  Initiative  and  Referendum, 
but,  after  investigation  and  deliberation,  de- 
clined to  adopt  it.  The  most  authoritative  Bel- 
gian work  on  the  subject  is  by  Prof.  Simon 
Deploige,  who  in  1892  published  the  results  of 
his  personal  observations  of  the  working  of  the 
Referendum  in  Switzerland.  He  states  it  as  a 
fact  that  it  is  the  Parliamentary  Opposition 
which  wants  the  Referendum  in  Switzerland; 
"the  Majority,  on  the  contrary,  whatever  its 
political  complexion,  wishes  to  be  rid  of  it."  He 
quotes  a  prominent  member  of  the  Swiss  Parlia- 
ment, M.  Zemp,  as  saying:  "I  should  like  to 
see  the  Referendum  completely  suppressed,  and 
above  all,  I  want  no  compulsory  Referendum. 
As  to  the  popular  Initiative,  I  dread  it  as  a  sort 
of  legislative  dynamite.  In  a  word,  the  so-called 
rights  of  the  people  seem  to  me  to  be  nothing 
more  than  democratic  clap-trap. " 

In  giving  this  quotation,  Prof.  Deploige 
says:  "In  less  picturesque  terms,  most  of  the 
speakers  of  the  majority  (of  the  Swiss  Parlia- 
ment) expressed  the  same  sentiments ;  and  some 


84  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

months  after  the  discussion,  M.  Numas  Droz 
(Ex-President  of  the  Swiss  Republic)  re-echoed 
them  in  a  long  article  in  the  "  Revue  Swisse." 
And  further  on  the  Belgian  observer  adds: 
"Droz  -is  a  most  inveterate  opponent  of  the 
popular  Initiative. " 

Summing  the  matter  up,  Prof.  Deploige 
says: 

"  It  is  a  little  ridiculous  to  talk  of 
legislation  by  the  people  when  more 
than  one-half  the  citizens  refuse  to 
exercise  their  legislative  rights. " 
Commenting  on  the  compulsory  vot- 
ing system,  and  the  consequent  great 
number  of  blank  ballots,  M.  Deploige 
says:  "The  experiment  of  the  demo- 
crats cannot  be  said  to  have  met  with 
success.  If  they  wish  to  avoid  com- 
plete failure,  they  must  do  two  things, 
and  do  them  quickly.  They  must  find 
a  better  method  of  direct  legislation, 
and  secondly  they  must  confine  the 
Referendum  to  a  small  number  of 
votes"  (measures).  (P.  290.) 

The  final  conclusion  of  M.  Deploige  as  to  the 
Swiss  Referendum  is  that  "its  method  is  defect- 
ive and  its  results  questionable." 

As  to  the  Initiative,  M.  Deploige  quotes  a 
Swiss  statesman,  M.  Borgeaud:  "The  evil  is 
that  in  this  case  a  law  proceeds  from  powers  that 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDTJM.  85 

are  anonymous  and  irresponsible.  *  *  *  This 
law  may  be  drawn  up  behind  closed  doors,  or 
around  the  council  board  of  some  committee, 
who  are  then  of  as  much  importance  as  the  regu- 
lar government."  M.  Droz  gives  exactly  the 
same  objection  to  the  Initiative. 

Hon.  Arthur  Sherburne  Hardy,  ex-Minister 
of  the  United  States  to  Switzerland,  says,  that 
"the  experience  of  Switzerland  cannot  be  made 
the  argument  for  the  adoption  of  the  Refer- 
endum or  Initiative  in  the  United  States  is 
generally  admitted  by  Continental  students  of 
the  system." 

M.  Naville,  a  Swiss  publicist,  says  that  "the 
large  number  of  abstentions  proves  that  it  is  not 
the  people,  but  a  relatively  small  part  of  the 
electoral  body  which  accepts  or  rejects  a  Law; 
and  that  it  is  ridiculous  to  suppose  that  each 
citizen  can  form  a  just  and  accurate  opinion 
upon  the  Laws  submitted  to  him." 

In  Switzerland  if  a  measure  is  rejected  it  is 
sometimes  initiated  again;  this  is  sometimes  re- 
peated by  the  partisans  of  the  measure ;  then  the 
people,  becoming  tired  of  resisting,  will  allow 
the  measure  to  become  a  Law  by  default.  One 
writer  says  that  "the  independent  and  con- 
scientious voters  of  Switzerland  who  have  not 
had  time  to  examine  the  Laws  usually  refrain 
from  voting."  Yet  the  far-fetched  claim  is 


86  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

made  by  the  advocates  of  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  that  non-voters  are  to  be  classed 
as  having  acquiesced  in  the  result  of  the  vote. 

THE   INITIATIVE  A  FAILURE. 

As  to  the  working  of  the  Initiative  in  Swit- 
zerland, we  here  give  the  testimony  of  Prof.  W. 
Oechsli,  of  Zurich,  Switzerland.  This  evidence 
is  recent,  it  being  taken  from  an  article  in  the 
"Quarterly  Review"  (London),  April,  1911. 
Prof.  Oechsli  confines  his  study  to  his  own  coun- 
try, with  its  unique  social,  economic  and  polit- 
ical institutions,  and  he  frankly  speaks  well  of 
the  Referendum  as  an  instrument  of  popular 
government  there.  But  he  stoutly  opposes  the 
Initiative  even  for  Switzerland.  He  says: 

"If  our  judgment  of  the  Referen- 
dum is,  on  the  whole,  distinctly  in  its 
favor,  practical  experience  of  the  pop- 
ular Initiative,  which  is  usually, 
though  wrongly,  coupled  with  it, 
points  to  a  different  conclusion.  The 
Referendum  is  a  right  enjoyed  by  the 
whole  people ;  the  Initiative  is  a  right 
of  individuals  or  minorities.  And  it 
goes  beyond  mere  liberty,  for  it  en- 
ables a  minority  to  put  compulsion  on 
a  whole  people,  forcing  it  to  occupy 
itself  with  proposals  for  which  it  has 
given  no  mandate.  It  is  in  the  nature 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  87 

of  things  that  the  Initiative  is  chiefly 
used  by  persons  who  are  either  con- 
sumed by  a  passion  for  reforming  the 
world  or  consider  themselves  inade- 
quately represented  by  the  Govern- 
ment." 

Prof.  Oechsli  gives  a  number  of  Initiative 
measures,  and  he  says  that  "most  of  the  pro- 
posals thus  submitted  to  the  popular  vote  were  of 
questionable  utility."  And  he  concludes  with 
this  emphatic  indictment  of  the  Initiative: 

"These  meagre  results  of  twenty 
years  of  Initiative  were  surely  not 
worth  the  constant  disturbance  in 
which  the  would-be  benefactors  of 
both  parties  have  kept  the  country. 
The  really  dangerous  proposals  have 
failed.  But  the  fact  that  an  institution 
has  not  as  yet  been  able  to  do  much 
damage  is  no  reason  for  praising  it. 
It  has  been  rightly  said  that  the  Ref- 
erendum signifies  democracy,  the  Ini- 
tiative demagogy.  Fortunately,  the 
Initiative  finds  its  corrective  in  the 
Referendum,  the  individual  will  of 
groups  in  the  common  will  of  the  peo- 
ple. If  Switzerland  is  threatened  by 
internal  dangers,  they  will  not  come 
from  the  Referendum,  but  rather 
from  the  extravagant  right  of  com- 
pulsion which  the  Initiative  confers 


88  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

on  the  extremest  minorities  as  against 
the  majority  of  the  nation." 

EX-PRESIDENT  DROZ  CONDEMNS  THE  INITIATIVE. 

Probably  the  best-known  public  man  of 
Switzerland  is  M.  Numa  Droz,  ex-President  of 
the  Republic,  and  for  twenty  years  a  member  of 
the  Federal  Council,  the  highest  branch  in  the 
Swiss  system  of  government.  M.  Droz  is  often 
quoted  in  favor  of  the  Referendum;  but  those 
favorable  views  appear  to  have  been  consider- 
ably modified,  and  he  has  grave  doubts  as  to  the 
applicability  of  the  Swiss  system  to  countries 
under  different  conditions.  As  to  the  Initiative, 
he  utterly  condemns  it.  In  the  "  Contemporary 
Review"  (London),  of  November,  1895,  M. 
Droz  said: 

"It  is  now  generally  agreed  that 
the  popular  initiative  might  at  any 
time  place  the  country  in  very  consid- 
erable danger.  From  the  moment 
that  the  regular  representatives  of 
the  people  have  no  more  to  say  in  the 
matter  than  an  irresponsible  commit- 
tee drawing  up  articles  in  a  bar  par- 
lor, it  is  clear  that  the  limits  of  sound 
democracy  have  been  passed  and  that 
the  reign  of  demagogy  has  begun. 
The  shaping  of  a  wise  constitution 
must  always  be  a  matter  of  weighing 
and  balancing.  It  cannot  be  permit- 


INITIATIVE  AND  BEFERENDTJM.  89 

ted  that  the  gravest  decisions  should 
be  the  work  of  impulse  or  surprise. 
The  generally  adopted  system  of  two 
chambers  and  of  two  or  three  read- 
ings for  every  bill,  is  a  recognition  of 
this  fact.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
Swiss  people  have  shown  a  want  of 
wisdom  in  adopting  a  system  of  ini- 
tiative which  places  all  our  institu- 
tions at  the  mercy  of  any  daring  at- 
tempt instigated  by  the  demagogue, 
and  favored  by  precisely  such  circum- 
stances as  should  rather  incline  us  to 
take  time  for  reflection." 


The  Muddle  in  Oregon. 


A  WARNING  TO  OTHER  STATES. 

Of  course  the  Referendum  as  applied  to 
Constitutions  and  certain  Legislative  Acts  is  a 
very  old  system  in  America ;  but  Oregon  has  the 
doubtful  distinction  of  being  the  first  State  to 
provide  for  the  amendment  of  its  Constitution 
through  the  Initiative.  That  was  in  1902.  Eight 
per  cent  of  the  voters  can  propose  not  only  a 
Law  but  a  Constitutional  Amendment,  and  5 
per  cent  can  demand  a  Referendum.  In  eight 
t  years  the  small  clique  of  Single  Taxers  in  com- 
bination with  the  Socialists  and  other  bands  of 
extremists  and  faddists,  have  succeeded  in  tying 
the  Constitution  of  Oregon  into  a  knot,  neces- 
sitating the  use  of  a  judicial  but  autocratic 
knife  to  cut  it.  In  other  words,  the  Supreme 
Court  itself  has,  it  is  claimed,  been  compelled 
to  practically  legislate,  and  to  render  dicta  which 
are  logically  at  variance  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
" sovereignty  of  the  people,"  so  as  to  bring  order 
out  of  chaos. 

The  combined  vote  —  yea  and  nay  —  on  the 
proposition  to  incorporate  the  Initiative  and 

90 


INITIATIVE  AND  EEFEKENDUM.  91 

Referendum  into  the  Constitution  was  only 
67.692  —  72  per  cent  of  the  total  vote  of  the 
State.  Owing  to  agitation  on  the  Woman's 
Suffrage  question  —  and  there  were  organiza- 
tions opposed  to  as  well  as  in  favor  of  female 
votes  —  and  as  to  the  liquor  traffic,  the  vote  was 
then  and  generally  has  been  larger  in  Oregon 
on  Initiative  and  Referendum  propositions  than 
in  other  States;  but  there  are  now  indications 
that  the  people  of  Oregon  are  tiring  of  their 
political  toy,  and  the  tendency  is  to  cast  a 
smaller  vote. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  people  would 
rarely  use  the  Initiative  and  Referendum.  That 
all  depends.  In  a  State  like  South  Dakota  that 
might  be  true ;  in  a  State  like  Oregon,  which  is 
the  paradise  of  organized  cranks,  intent  on  en- 
forcing their  crude  minority  ideas  on  an  unap- 
preciative  majority,  the  experience  is  the  other 
way.  Oregon  "went  the  whole  hog"  on  the  In- 
itiative and  Referendum  in  1902;  in  1904  only 
two  propositions  were  submitted  under  it;  in 
1906  there  were  11;  in  1908  there  were  19;  in 
1910  there  were  32,  besides  131  candidates  for 
the  unfortunate  people  of  Oregon  to  vote  for! 
It  took  a  booklet  of  202  pages,  —  not  counting 
the  index  —  to  officially  set  forth  the  32  propo- 
sitions. It  is  said  that  some  of  the  voters  of 
Oregon  have  become  so  expert  that  they  voted 


92  INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDUM. 

^  on  all  the  32  propositions  and  the  131  candidates 
in  exactly  2  1-2  minutes,  by  the  watch ! 

SINGLE  TAXERS  BACK  OF  IT. 

The  Single  Taxers,  led  by  that  remarkable 
enthusiast,  Mr.  W.  S.  U'Ren,  were  the  original 
promoters  and  are  now  the  mainstay  of  the  In- 
itiative and  Referendum  in  Oregon.  The  story 
of  how  Mr.  U'Ren  got  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum engrafted  onto  the  Constitution  of  Oregon 
has  been  often  told  by  magazine  writers.  Fol- 
lowing is  his  own  account,  taken  from  the  official 
Report  of  the  Single  Tax  Conference,  held  at 
New  York,  November  19-20,  1910,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Joseph  Fels  Commission,  — 
pages  21  and  22 : 

"Mr.  W.  S.  U'Ren  told  of  his  ex- 
perience as  a  Single  Tax  propagan- 
dist before  he  learned  that  mere  prop- 
aganda is  not  the  line  of  least  resist- 
ance. 'I  read  "Progess  and  Pover- 
ty" in  1882,'  he  said,  'and  I  went  just 
as  crazy  over  the  Single  Tax  idea  as 
any  one  else  ever  did.  I  knew  I  want- 
ed the  Single  Tax,  and  that  was  about 
all  I  did  know.  I  thought  I  could  get 
it  by  agitation,  and  was  often  dis- 
gusted with  a  world  that  refused  to  be 
agitated  for  what  I  wanted.  In  1882 
(sic)  I  learned  what  the  Initiative 
and  Referendum  is,  and  then  I  saw 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  93 

the  way  to  the  Single  Tax.  SO  I 
QUIT  TALKING  SINGLE  TAX, 

not  because  I  was  any  the  less  in  favor 
of  it  but  because  I  saw  that  the  first 
job  was  to  get  the  Initiative  and  Ref- 
erendum, so  that  the  people,  indepen- 
dently of  the  Legislature,  may  get 
what  they  want  rather  than  take  what 
the  Legislature  will  let  them  have. 
We  have  laid  the  foundation  in  Ore- 
gon, and  our  Legislature  can  not 
draw  a  dead  line  against  the  people. 

"  'We  have  cleared  the  way  for  a 
straight  Single  Tax  fight  in  Oregon. 
All  the  work  we  have  done  for  Direct 
Legislation  has  been  done  with  the 
Single  Tax  in  view,  but  we  have  not 
talked  Single  Tax  because  that  was 
not  the  question  before  the  house.' 

In  another  speech  at  the  Conference,  Mr. 
U'Ren  said,  in  explaining  the  methods  adopted 
in  Oregon  by  the  Single  Taxers:  "We  do  not 
make  speaking  campaigns."  In  endorsing  the 
work  of  the  Fels  Fund  Commission  for  Direct 
Legislation,  Mr.  U'Ren  "exhibited  the  Oregon 
ballot  used  at  the  November  election  (1910),  on 
which  were  printed  the  names  of  more  than  one 
hundred  candidates  and  32  measures,  and  said 
that  the  time  taken  by  the  voters  in  voting  on 
candidates  and  measures  was  from  2  1-2  to  six 
minutes."  (P.  14.) 


94  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

^  The  majority  of  the  people  of  Oregon  are  op- 
1  posed  to  the  Single  Tax.  They  have  shown  that 
by  their  votes.  The  first  time  was  in  1908. -Wn 
order  to  make  the  medicine  agreeable  to  the  tax- 
payers, wholesale  exemptions  were  declared  for, 
but  the  printed  official  affirmative  argument  con- 
fessed that  "the  proposed  Amendment  is  a  step 
in  the  direction  of  the  Single  Tax."  For  the 
Amendment  there  were  cast  32,066  votes,  and 
against  it  60,871  —  almost  two  to  one  against  it. 
But  the  Single  Taxers  were  not  discouraged; 
they  knew  the  potentialities  of  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  in  enforcing  the  will  of  a  deter- 
mined, persistent,  well-organized,  and  splendidly 
financed  minority,  on  an  unalert,  unorganized 
majority,  weary  with  constant  political  turmoil, 
and  unwilling  to  bother  about  studying  and  dis- 
criminating between  the  numerous  propositions 
submitted  —  32  in  this  case,  along  with  131  can- 
didates^ What  is  known  as  the  Amendment  for 
"County  Home  Rule  in  Taxation,"  under  which 
the  Single  Taxers  expect  to  reach  their  goal,  is 
the  proposition  on  which  the  Single  Taxers  of 
Oregon  united,  under  the  adroit  work  of  the  Fels 
Fund  Commission.  The  real  object  of  this 
Amendment  was  obscured  by  dextrous  phrase- 
ology —  a  recourse  to  which  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  peculiarly  lends  itself.  This 
Amendment  was  so  drawn  that  it  appeared  as 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  95 

if  its  primary  object  was  to  prohibit  the  imposi- 
tion of  a  "poll  or  head  tax."  The  first  sentence 
read:  "No  poll  or  head  tax  shall  be  levied  or 
collected  in  Oregon."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there 
was  no  poll  or  head  tax  in  the  State,  that  having 
been  abolished  by  the  Legislature  in  1907^*  At 
the  end  of  the  Amendment  were  these  words: 
*  *  *'"But  the  people  of  the  several  counties 
are  hereby  empowered  and  authorized  to  regu- 
late taxation  and  exemptions  within  their  sev- 
eral counties,  subject  to  any  general  law  which 
may  be  hereafter  enacted,"  -  of  course,  through 
the  same  old  dodge  of  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum."1]^ should  be  observed  that  there  is  not 
a  word  specifically  about  the  Single  Tax.  Al- 
ready one  County  —  or  rather  a  small  minority 
of  the  voters  —  has  initiated  proceedings  for 
the  Single  Tax  under  it ;  but  here  comes  in  one 
of  the  beautiful  features  of  the  Direct  Legis- 
lation system :  The  Secretary  of  State  of  Oregon 
has  felt  it  to  be  his  sworn  duty  to  refuse  to  file 
the  Initiative  petition  on  the  ground  that  owing 
to  legal  defects  the  Amendment  is  not  self- 
executing.  The  petitioners  have  brought  man- 
damus proceedings  to  require  this  Initiative 
proposition  to  be  placed  on  the  ballot  at  the 
State  election  of  1912.  This  radical  change  in 
the  taxing  system  of  the  State  was  fastened 
upon  Oregon  by  a  vote  of  44,171  for,  to  42,127 


96  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

against  —  the  majority  being  only  2,044.  The 
total  vote  —  for  and  against  —  was  72  per  cent 
of  the  total  vote  of  the  State,  and  the  affirmative 
vote  was  only  37  1-2  per  cent  of  the  vote  cast 
for  Governor  at  that  election. 

STATE   UNIVERSITY  JEOPARDIZED. 

I  In  the  last  six  years  there  have  been  three 
Referendum  petitions  filed  against  appropria- 
tions by  the  Legislature  of  Oregon  for  the  State 
University.  The  first  two  petitions  were  de- 
feated by  a  small  majority  at  the  election,  but  in 
each  case  the  appropriations  were  held  up  for 
more  than  a  year  and  a  half,  and  the  University 
would  have  been  compelled  to  close  its  doors 
had  not  the  professors  agreed  for  the  last  six 
months  preceding  each  of  the  elections  to  work 
without  salary  unless  and  until  the  appropria- 
tions became  available.  The  amounts  appropri- 
ated for  the  University  were  not  large,  —  in  the 
first  instance  only  $62,500  a  year  for  two  years, 
and  in  the  second  case  $125,000  a  year  for  two 
years.  At  the  time  of  writing  this  booklet,  legal 
proceedings  are  pending  contesting  the  validity 
of  the  third  Referendum  petition  against  the 
legislative  appropriation.  This  petition  was  in- 
stituted by  citizens  of  rival  towns  to  that  in 
which  the  institution  is  placed.  These  people 
are  said  to  have  employed  a  professional  agitator 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  97 

and  circulator  of  Initiative  and  Referendum 
petitions  at  a  price  per  name!  The  legal  pro- 
ceedings referred  to  are  an  equity  suit,  and  a 
large  amount  of  evidence  lias  been  taken  by  tlie 
court.  It  is  asserted  that  it  has  been  disclosed 
that  there  have  been  comparatively  but  few 
genuine  signatures  on  the  Referendum  petitions ; 
that  it  has  been  shown  that  the  circulators  of 
the  petitions  filled  in  several  thousand  names  in 
their  own  handwriting,  in  some  cases  taking  the 
names  from  old  directories,  and  even  signing 
the  names  of  people  who  had  been  dead  for  sev- 
eral years ! 

CRUDE  AND  CONFLICTING   LAWS. 

That  legislation  under  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum  will  be  crude  and  conflicting  is  not 
only  obvious  on  its  face,  but  is  the  demonstration 
of  experience.  One  measure  had  to  be  rejected 
by  the  Oregon  authorities  because  of  the  absence 
of  an  enacting  clause  —  and  the  same  difficulty 
is  cropping  out  in  other  propositions.  Two  ab- 
solutely conflicting  Laws  were  passed  under  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum  at  the  same  time  in 
regard  to  catching  salmon  in  the  Columbia 
One  of  these  Laws  prohibited  catching  fish 
wheels,  and  the  other  by  nets.  One  way  was  the 
custom  in  one  part  of  the  River,  and  the  other 
way  in  a  different  part,  and  the  followers  of  each 


98  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

desired  to  have  a  monopoly  of  the  business.  The 
result  was  that  the  entire  important  industry  of 
salmon  fishing  on  the  Columbia  was  prohibited. 
Fortunately,  the  despised  Legislature  came  to 
the  rescue. 

CONSTITUTIONAL   MUDDLE. 

It  is  impossible  in  the  space  available  to  even 
enumerate  the  instances  and  phases  of  the  seri- 
ous Constitutional  entanglements  caused  by  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum  in  Oregon,  both  as 
regards  Statutory  Law  and  as  to  the  Constitu- 
tion itself.  In  1910  an  Amendment  was  adopted 
by  a  vote  of  only  69  per  cent  of  the  total  vote  of 
the  State  —  and  by  only  5,139  majority  of  the 
votes  cast  on  the  proposition  —  making  certain 
changes  in  the  judicial  system  and  in  the  pro- 
cedure of  the  Supreme  Court./Such  a  high  legal 
authority  as  Mr.  Frederick  V.  Holman,  of  Port- 
land (ex-President  of  the  State  Bar  Association 
and  a  Regent  of  the  State  University),  claims 
that  this  Amendment  was  so  crudely  drawn  that 
there  is  a  serious  question  whether  trial  by  iury 
' 


'has  not  been  abolished  in  Oregon  by  it.  A 
only  so,  but  the  Supreme  Court  has  been  given 
power  to  determine  what  verdict  shall  be  given 
in  a  criminal  trial  ;  under  the  same  section  there 
is  also  a  provision  —  in  effect  —  that  no  judg- 
ment, however  unjust,  can  be  re-examined  by  any 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  99 

court ;  and  the  same  amendment  also  allows  the 
Supreme  Court  to  find  a  defendant  guilty  of  an 
offense  for  which  he  had  not  been  indicted !  This 
muddling  Amendment  was  placed  in  the  Consti- 
tution of  Oregon  by  less  than  38  per  cent  of  the 
total  number  of  men  who  voted  the  same  day  for 
Governor. 

The  Supreme  Court  of  Oregon  has  expe- 
rienced some  difficulty  in  construing  Initiative 
Amendments,  and  it  has  found  it  necessary  to 
practically  amend  some  of  these  Amendments  by 
its  decisions,  by  supplying  omissions  and  by  in- 
terpolating provisions  not  contained  in  the 
Amendments  themselves! 

Mr.  Frank  Foxcroft,  in  an  article  "  Consti- 
tution Mending  and  the  Initiative/'  in  the  " At- 
lantic Monthly",  June,  1906,  cites  the  case  of 
Kadderly  vs.  Portland  (44th  vol.  Oregon  Re- 
ports.) The  Supreme  Court  of  Oregon  said  in 
that  case: 

«*  «  *  First,  that  laws  pro- 
posed and  enacted  by  the  people  un- 
der the  initiative  clause  of  the  amend- 
ment 'are  subject  to  the  same  consti- 
tutional limitations  as  other  statutes, 
and  may  be  amended  or  repealed  by 
the  Legislature  at  will';  and,  second, 
that  the  provision  in  the  amendment 
to  the  effect  that  'the  veto  power  of 
the  governor  shall  not  extend  to 


100          INITIATIVE  AND  REFEBENDTJM. 

measures  referred  to  the  people' 
must  necessarily  'be  confined  to  the 
measures  which  the  legislature  may 
refer,  and  cannot  apply  to  acts  upon 
which  the  referendum  may  be  invok- 
ed by  petition.'  " 

The  Court  went  on  to  say : 

"Unless  the  governor  has  the 
right  to  veto  any  act  submitted  to 
him,  except  such  as  the  legislature 
may  specially  refer  to  the  people, 
'one  of  the  safeguards  against  hasty 
or  ill-advised  legislation  which  is 
everywhere  regarded  as  essential  is 
removed.'  " 

After  citing  a  number  of  unsatisfactory  re- 
sults under  the  Initiative  Amendments  of  the 
Oregon  Constitution,  Mr.  Frederick  V.  Holman 
said,  in  his  speech  as  the  President  of  the  Ore- 
gon Bar  Association,  November  15,  1910: 


«*  *  *  T]ie  cru(uty  of  these 
popular  amendments  of  the  Constitu- 
tion and  other  enactments  have  been 
such  that  they  have  been  amended  by 
the  Courts— practically  legislating 
amendments  by  decisions— to  make 
these  enactments  workable.  For- 
tunately, perhaps,  these  initiative 
amendments  of  the  Constitution  do 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  101 

not  provide  against  their  amendment 
by  judicial  decisions." 

"*  *  *  Having  no  established 
precedents  in  these  innovations  by  the 
initiative  and  referendum  powers  in 
the  Constitution,  it  is  difficult  to 
make  them  workable.  It  is  somewhat 
like  navigating  a  ship  in  the  open  sea 
without  chart,  compass  or  chronome- 
ter." 

In  the  case  of  Straw  v.  Harris,  54  Oregon, 
424,  decided  August  24,  1909,  one  of  the  main 
points  decided  was  --  That  under  the  initiative 
and  referendum  amendments  of  the  Constitution 
there  are  two  separate  and  distinct  law-making 
bodies,  each  equal,  viz. :  The  Legislature  and  the 
people.  The  Court  said: 

"By  the  adoption  of  the  initiative 
and  referendum  into  our  Constitu- 
tion, the  legislative  department  of  the 
State  is  divided  into  two  separate  and 
distinct  law-making  bodies.  There 
remains,  however,  as  formerly,  but 
one  legislative  department  of  the 
State.  *  *  *  The  powers  thus  re- 
served to  the  people  merely  took  from 
the  Legislature  the  exclusive  right  to 
enact  laws,  at  the  same  time,  leaving 
it  a  co-ordinate  legislative  body  with 
them. 


102          INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

"*  *  *  Subject  to  the  excep- 
tions enumerated  in  the  Constitution, 
as  amended,  either  branch  of  the  leg- 
islative department,  whether  the  peo- 
ple, or  their  representatives,  may 
enact  any  law,  and  may  even  repeal 
any  act  passed  by  the  other." 

With  irresistible  logic  Mr.  Holman  argues 
that  the  situation  in  Oregon  under  the  Initiative 
and  Referendum  Constitution  as  the  Supreme 
Court  has  felt  compelled  to  construe  it,  is  a  dan- 
gerous one.  He  points  out  that  the  Legislature 
can  repeal  an  Initiative  Law,  and  vice  versa; 
and  that  the  Legislature  might  pass  one  law 
and  the  people  under  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum might  pass  another  directly  in  conflict; 
and  he  enquires :  What  would  be  the  result?  - 
for  the  Supreme  Court  has  decided  that  each  is 
equal  as  a  law-making  power.  "It  would  be  like 
the  celebrated  case  of  an  irresistible  force  meet- 
ing an  immovable  body.  Will  not  the  Legisla- 
ture become  as  useless  as  a  vermiform  append- 
age is  to  a  human  being?  It  may  have  some 
functions,  but  it  is  apparently  a  menace.  Would 
it  not  be  well  to  cut  it  out  before  it  becomes 
dangerous?" 

In  a  masterly  speech  against  the  Initiative 
and  Referendum  delivered  in  the  Ohio  House 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  103 

of  Representatives  b}^  the  Hon.  Carl  P.  Shuler, 
March  19,  1908,  that  gentleman  said: 

"Some  time  ago  I  wrote  to  the 
mayors  of  ten  towns  in  Oregon,  and  I 
received  answers  from  six.  Of  the 
six,  only  one  spoke  in  favor  of  the 
scheme,  the  other  five  being  unfavor- 
able. Some  were  less  severe  in  their 
denunciation,  but  all  believed  that  it 
is  not  accomplishing  what  was  ex- 
pected of  it ;  that  it  is  not  so  popular 
as  it  was;  and  that  it  is  impossible 
for  all  the  people  to  vote  intelligently 
on  all  the  questions  to  be  submitted." 

Originally  the  Portland  "Oregonian,"  - 
which  is  one  of  the  leading  papers  on  the  Pacific 
Coast  —  was  in  favor  of  the  Initiative  and  Ref- 
erendum ;  but  after  observing  its  operations  for 
several  years  it  has  come  out  in  opposition.  It 
declares  that  the  system  has  "the  effect  prac- 
tically of  abolishing  Constitution  and  laws  al- 
together. *  *  *  The  whole  of  this  modern  scheme 
of  setting  aside  Constitution  and  laws,  and  of 
forcing  legislation  without  debate  or  opportu- 
nity of  amendment  turns  out  badly,  because  it 
gives  the  cranks  of  the  country  an  opportunity 
which  they  have  not  self-restraint  enough  to 
forego.  It  was  not  intended  that  representative 


104          INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

government  should  be  abolished  by  the  new  sys- 
tem ;  but  it  has  been  abolished  by  it.  The  situa- 
tion is  the  crank's  paradise/' 

Prof.  Oberholtzer  does  not  hesitate  to  say 
in  the  new  edition  of  his  work  that  the  real  in- 
tention of  the  " inventors"  of  the  Oregon  plan  of 
the  Initiative,  Referendum  and  the  Recall,  is 
the  establishment  of  Socialism. 


South  Dakota. 

THE  ORIGINAL  INITIATIVE  STATE. 

While  Oregon  was  the  first  State  to  make  the 
Initiative  applicable  to  Constitutional  Amend- 
ments, South  Dakota  was  the  first  State  to  give 
its  citizens  the  power  to  initiate  Laws.  This  was 
done  in  1898,  and,  as  Prof.  Oberholtzer  observes 
("The  Referendum  in  America")  this  change 
was  "one  of  the  most  important  that  has  ever 
been  made  in  the  American  system  of  govern- 
ment. ' ' 

In  South  Dakota  the  people  may  initiate 
Laws  for  submission  to  popular  vote  upon  the 
petition  of  five  per  cent  of  the  "qualified  electors 
of  the  State,"  and  they  may  require  a  vote  upon 
a  Legislative  Act  upon  the  application  of  the 
same  number  of  electors. 

Like  most  of  the  other  claims  in  favor  of  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum,  the  assertion  that  it 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  105 

has  proved  satisfactory  in  South  Dakota  is  to  be 
received  with  a  i '  big  bag  of  salt. ' '  But  even  were 
it  true,  it  would  only  illustrate  what  ex-Presi- 
dent Roosevelt  said  in  a  speech  at  Phoenix, 
Arizona,  March  20,  1911:  "The  principles  of 
the  Initiative  and  Referendum  may  or  may  not 
be  adapted  to  the  needs  of  a  given  State  under 
given  conditions;  I  believe  they  are  useful  in 
some  communities  and  not  in  others."  For  in- 
stance :  South  Dakota  is  a  purely  agricultural 
State,  with  a  very  conservative  population  - 
naturally  so  for  the  reason  that  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  people  own  the  land  on  which  they 
live,  and  are  mainly  native  American  or  thrifty 
Teutonic.  The  Initiative  and  Referendum 
might  be  fairly  successful  in  South  Dakota  but 
might  be  very  harmful  in  a  State  like  Ohio,  or 
New  York,  or  Illinois,  where  the  conditions  are 
altogether  different. 

WHAT  THE   GOVERNOR  SAYS. 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  reason  for 
grave  doubt  whether  even  South  Dakota  has; 
done  a  wise  thing  in  extending  the  Initiative' 
and  Referendum  as  far  as  it  has  done.    In  a 
speech  to  the  citizens  of  Kansas,  October,  1911, 
Gov.  Vessey  of  South  Dakota,   uttered  these 
warning  words: 

"If  Kansas  adopts  the  Initiative 
and  Referendum  you  must  not  expect 


106          INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 


that  the  millennium  will  be  ushered 
in.  Don't  think  for  a  minute  that  this 
system  is  a  cure  for  all  evils.  It  may 
cure  some  old  evils,  but  certain  I  am 
that  it  brings  on  new  evils  which  are 
very  harmful  to  /the  State  and  its 
people.  In  the  first  place,  it  helps  the 
scalawag  as  often  as  the  good  citizen, 
if  not  oftener.  Every  time  a  Law  is 
passed  to  improve  moral  conditions, 
it  is  ref  erended  back  to  the  people  by 
the  rag-tag  element,  and  eighteen 
months  must  elapse  before  it  goes 
into  effect,  even  if  by  reason  of  the 
delay  its  opponents  are  not  able  to 
bring  about  its  defeat.  Also,  it  is  ex- 
pensive. An  unscrupulous  politician 
in  my  State  who  wanted  to  get  a  cer- 
tain bill  on  the  Statute  books,  started 
initiative  petitions,  and  by  paying 
ten  cents  for  each  signature  got 
enough  of  them  to  compel  the  submis- 
sion of  the  measure  at  an  election. 
He  was  defeated,  but  at  a  cost  to  the 
State  of  $150,000.  The  Initiative  and 
Eeferendum  doesn't  work  as  smooth- 
i  ly  as  those  who  believe  in  it  think  it 
will." 


When  Gov.  Vessey  was  elected,  in  1910,  his 
name  was  on  a  seven-foot  ballot,  one  foot  being 
devoted  to  the  candidates  and  six  feet  to  Initia- 
tive and  Referendum  propositions. 


A  Few  Closing  Words. 


What  the  American  people  need  is  not  more 
Laws  and  a  new  Constitution  so  much  as  a 
broader  and  deeper  realization  of  their  privi- 
leges and  obligations  as  citizens  of  the  Republic. 
The  most  flagrant  crime  in  America  today— a 
crime  more  harmful  than  even  "graft"— is  the 
apathy  and  indifference  of  the  average  voter  in 
regard  to  his  duties  as  a  citizen  of  the  grandest, 
the  freest,  and  the  altogether  most  glorious  coun- 
try under  the  sun.  What  we  need  is  not  a  mere 
baptism,  but  a  very  flood  of  Civic  Patriotism! 
More  Laws  and  a  new  Constitution— however 
much  they  may  be  required— will  not  give  that. 

As  it  is,  most  Americans  are  content  to  let 
politics  be  the  exclusive  vocation  of  the  "poli- 
ticians." They  do  not  "see  anything  in  it"  for 
themselves,  and  so  they  let  the  bosses  and  "the 
interests"  run  things ;  and  then  they  wonder  why 
things  go  wrong!  Conditions  are  bad  enough 
under  the  Representative  plan;  under  the  Ini- 
tiative and  Referendum,  as  an  established  and 
universal  system  in  the  Constitutions  of  the 
States,  and  particularly  in  the  Federal  Constitu- 

107 


108          INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

tion,  there  would  be  a  grave  likelihood  that  the 
French  Commune  would  be  a  Sunday-school  in 
comparison. 

We  do  not  need  any  more  of  the  Initiative 
and  Referendum.  The  samples  we  have  had  are 
enough.  They  have  demonstrated  that  the  sys- 
tem is  not  only  a  failure  as  an  effective  and  satis- 1 
factory  instrument  of  Democratic  government, 
but  that  it  is  full  of  vicious  possibilities.  The' 
day  that  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  is  en- 
grafted on  the  Federal  Constitution— which  God 
forbid— will  be  recorded  in  history  as  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end  of  the  American  Republic. 

But  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  will  in 
due  time  be  relegated  to  the  limbo  of  discarded 
political  nostrums ;  and  the  Republic  will  live  ;— 
and  it  will  continue  to  grow  in  grandeur  and  to 
become  more  and  more  splendid  as  the  land  of 
ordered  Liberty  and  true  Democracy. 


Appendix. 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  ON  "CONSTANT  CLAMORERS." 

In  1833,  Daniel  Webster,  in  a  speech  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  gave  utterance  to  the  following  outburst 
against  "constant  clamorers."  The  conditions  to-day  are 
so  similar  to  those  described  by  Webster  as  existing  seventy- 
eight  years  ago,  that  the  speech  would  be  opportune  if 
made  at  the  present  session  of  Congress : 

"There  are  persons  who  constantly  clamor. 
They  complain  of  oppression,  speculation  and 
the  pernicious  influence  of  accumulated  wealth. 
They  cry  out  loudly  against  all  banks  and  cor- 
porations and  all  the  means  by  which  small 
capitals  become  united  in  order  to  produce  im- 
portant and  beneficial  results.  They  carry  on 
a  mad  hostility  against  all  established  institu- 
tions. They  would  choke  up  the  fountains  of 
industry  and  dry  all  its  streams.  In  a  country 
of  unbounded  liberty  they  clamor  against  op- 
pression. In  a  country  of  perfect  equality  they 
would  move  heaven  and  earth  against  privilege 
and  monopoly.  In  a  country  where  property  is 
more  equally  divided  than  anywhere  else  they 
rend  the  air  with  shouting  of  agrarian  doctrines. 
In  a  country  where  the  wages  of  labor  are  high 
beyond  all  parallel  they  would  teach  the  laborer 
that  he  is  but  an  oppressed  slave.  Sir,  what 
can  such  men  want?  What  do  they  mean? 
They  can  want  nothing,  sir,  but  to  enjoy  the 
fruits  of  other  men's  labor.  They  can  mean 
nothing  but  disturbance  and  disorder,  the  dif- 
fusion of  corrupt  principles  and  the  destruction 
109 


110          INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDUM. 

of  the  moral  sentiments  and  moral  habits  of 
society.  A  licentiousness  of  feeling  and  of  ac- 
tion is  sometimes  produced  by  prosperity  itself. 
Men  cannot  always  resist  the  temptation  to 
which  they  are  exposed  by  the  very  abundance 
of  the  bounties  of  Providence  and  the  very  hap- 
piness of  their  own  condition." 

AN  ANCIENT  EXAMPLE. 

In  an  article  entitled  "Representative  as  Against  Direct 
Government"  in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  (October,  1911) 
the  Hon.  Samuel  W.  McCall  says: 

"Those  who  advocate  the  direct  action  of 
our  great  democracy  might  study  with  a  good 
deal  of  profit  the  history  of  the  little  state 
(Athens)  to  which  I  have  just  been  referring. 
No  more  brilliant  people  ever  existed  than  the 
Athenian  people.  They  had  a  genius  for  gov- 
ernment. The  common  man  was  able  to  'think 
imperially.'  Their  great  philosopher,  Aristotle, 
could  well  speak  of  the  Athenian  as  a  political 
animal.  They  achieved  a  development  in  litera- 
ture and  art  which  probably  has  never  since  been 
reached.  They  could  boast  of  orators  and  phil- 
osophers to  which  those  of  no  other  nation  can 
be  compared.  We  marvel  when  we  consider  the 
surviving  proofs  of  their  civilization.  But  when 
they  did  away  with  all  restraints  upon  their 
direct  action  in  the  making  and  enforcement  of 
laws,  in  administering  justice  and  in  regulating 
foreign  affairs,  their  greatness  was  soon  brought 
to  an  end,  and  they  became  the  victims  of  the 
most  odious  tyranny  to  which  any  people  can 
be  subjected,  the  tyranny  that  results  from  their 
own  unrestrained  and  unbridled  action. 

"It  is  said  that  the  history  of  those  distant 
times  can  present  no  useful  precedent  for  our 
own  guidance;  but  in  what  respect  is  human 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDUM.  Ill 

nature  different  to-day?  Whatever  new  stars 
our  telescopes  may  have  discovered,  whatever 
new  inventions  may  have  been  brought  to  light, 
and  whatever  advances  may  have  been  made  in 
scientific  knowledge,  the  mainsprings  of  human 
action  are  substantially  the  same  to-day  that 
they  were  in  the  time  of  the  Greeks.  We  should 
be  rash  indeed  to  assume  that  we  shall  succeed 
where  they  failed,  and  that  we  can  disregard 
their  experience  with  impunity." 

THE  "FATHERS"  KNEW  THEIR  BUSINESS. 

Discussing  the  deliberate  choice  by  the  framers  of  the 
Federal  Constitution  of  the  Representative  over  the  Direct 
system  of  government,  the  Hon.  Samuel  W.  McCall  says 
("Atlantic  Monthly,"  October,  1911)  : 

"The  framers  of  our  Constitution  were  en- 
deavoring to  establish  a  government  which 
should  have  sway  over  a  great  territory  and  a 
population  already  large  and  which  they  knew 
would  rapidly  increase.  They  were  about  to 
consummate  the  most  democratic  movement 
that  had  ever  occurred  on  a  grand  scale  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  They  well  knew  from  the 
experiments  of  the  past  the  inevitable  limitations 
upon  direct  democratic  government,  and,  being 
statesmen  as  well  as  democrats,  they  sought  to 
make  their  government  enduring  by  guarding 
against  the  excesses  which  had  so  often  brought 
popular  governments  to  destruction.  They  es- 
tablished a  government  which  Lincoln  called  'of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,'  and 
in  order  effectively  to  create  it  they  adopted 
limitations  which  would  make  its  continued 
existence  possible.  They  knew  that,  if  the  gov- 
ernmental energy  became  too  much  diluted  and 
dissolved,  the  evils  of  anarchy  would  result,  and 
that  there  would  follow  a  reaction  to  the  other 


112          INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

extreme,  with  the  resulting  overthrow  of  popular 
rights.  They  saw  clearly  the  line  over  which 
they  might  not  pass  in  pretended  devotion  to  the 
democratic  idea  without  establishing  govern- 
ment of  the  demagogue,  by  the  demagogue,  and 
for  the  demagogue,  with  the  recoil  in  favor  of 
autocracy  sure  speedily  to  follow;  for  they 
knew  that  the  men  of  the  race  from  which  they 
sprang  would  not  long  permit  themselves  to  be 
the  victims  of  misgovernment,  and  that  they 
would  prefer  even  autocracy  to  a  system  under 
which  the  great  ends  of  government  should  not 
be  secured,  or  should  be  perverted." 


"PURE"  VS.  "REPRESENTATIVE"  DEMOCRACY. 

Prof.  Garner,  in  his  work  "Introduction  to  Political 
Science,"  thus  differentiates  between  "Pure"  and  "Repre- 
sentative" Democracy: 

"Democracies  are  of  two  kinds — pure,  or 
direct,  and  representative,  or  indirect.  A  pure 
democracy  is  one  in  which  the  will  of  the  state 
is  formulated  and  expressed  directly  and  imme- 
diately through  the  people  acting  in  their  pri- 
mary capacity.  A  representative  democracy  is 
one  in  which  the  state  will  is  ascertained  and 
expressed  through  the  agency  of  a  small  and 
select  number,  who  act  as  the  representatives  of 
the  people.  A  pure  democracy  is  practicable 
only  in  small  states,  where  the  voting  popula- 
tion may  be  assembled  for  purposes  of  legisla- 
tion and  where  the  collective  needs  of  the  people 
are  few  and  simple.  In  large  and  complex  so- 
cieties, where  the  legislative  wants  of  the  people 
are  numerous,  the  very  necessities  of  the  situa- 
tion make  government  by  the  whole  body  of 

•^ns   a  physical  impossibility," 


INITIATIVE  AND  EEFERENDUM.  113 

Tucker,  in  his  ''Constitution  of  the  United  States" 
(p.  87),  says  that  the  Representative  system  "is  the  only 
practicable  way  by  which  a  large  country  can  give  expres- 
sion to  its  will  in  deliberate  legislation." 

In  "Black's  Constitutional  Law,"  p.  28,  the  following 
distinction  is  drawn: 

"The  system  of  government  in  the  United 
States  and  in  the  several  states  is  distinguished 
from  a  pure  democracy  in  this  respect,  that  the 
will  of  the  people  is  made  manifest  through 
representatives  chosen  by  them  to  administer 
their  affairs  and  make  their  laws,  and  who  are 
intrusted  with  defined  and  limited  powers  in  that 
regard,  whereas  the  idea  of  a  democracy,  non- 
representative  in  character,  implies  that  the 
laws  are  made  by  the  entire  people  acting  in  a 
mass-meeting  or  at  least  by  universal  and  direct 
vote. 

"Representation  is  one  of  the  very  essentials 
of  a  republican  form  of  government." 


In    No.    48   of    the    "Federalist"    (XII    "Hamilton's 
Works,"  p.  28)  Madison  refers  to  a  Democracy  as    *    *    * 

"where  a  multitude  of  people  exercise  in  person 
the  legislative  functions,  and  are  continually 
eoxpsed,  by  their  incapacity  for  regular,  delib- 
erate and  concerted  measures,  to  =he  intrigues 
of  their  executive  magistrates;"  ai-d  to  a  repub- 
lic "where  the  executive  magistracy  is  carefully 
limited  both  in  the  extent  and  in  the  duration 
of  its  power,  and  where  the  legislative  power  is 
exercised  by  an  assembly  *  *  *  ." 


114          INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

In  the  debates  in  the  convention  held  in  New  York  on 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  Hamilton  said: 

"It  has  been  observed  by  an  honorable 
gentleman  that  a  pure  democracy,  if  it  were 
practicable,  would  be  the  most  perfect  govern- 
ment. Experience  has  proved  that  no  position 
in  politics  is  more  false  than  this.  The  ancient 
democracies  in  which  the  people  themselves 
deliberated  never  possessed  one  feature  of  good 
government.  Their  very  character  was  tyranny ; 
their  figure  deformity.  When  they  assembled 
the  field  of  debate  presented  an  ungovernable 
mob  not  only  incapable  of  deliberation,  but  pre- 
pared for  every  enormity." 

John  Marshall,  in  the  Virginia  Convention,  said: 

"I  shall  ask  the  worthy  member  only,  if  the 
people  at  large,  and  they  alone,  ought  to  make 
laws  and  treaties?  Has  any  man  this  in  con- 
templation? You  cannot  exercise  the  powers  of 
government  personally  yourselves.  You  must 
trust  to  agents.  *  *  * 

"Can  the  whole  aggregate  community  act 
personally?  I  apprehend  that  every  gentleman 
will  see  the  impossibility  of  this.  Must  they, 
then,  not  trust  them  to  others?  To  whom  are 
they  to  trust  them  but  to  their  representatives, 
who  are  accountable  for  their  conduct?" 


"A  REPUBLICAN  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT." 

The  late  Chief  Justice  Fuller,  of  the  U.  S.  Supreme 
Court,  in  delivering  the  opinion  in  re  Duncan,  139  U.  S. 
449,  stated  that: 

"By  the  Constitution,  a  republican  form  of 
government  is  guaranteed  to  every  State  in  the 
Union,  and  the  distinguishing  feature  of  that 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  115 

form  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  choose  their 
own  officers  for  governmental  administration, 
and  pass  their  own  laws  in  virtue  of  the  legisla- 
tive power  reposed  in  representative  bodies, 
whose  legitimate  acts  may  be  said  to  be  those  of 
the  people  themselves ;  but,  while  the  people  are 
thus  the  source  of  political  power,  their  govern- 
ments, National  and  "State,  have  been  limited  by 
written  constitutions,  and  they  have  themselves 
thereby  set  bounds  to  their  own  power,  as 
against  the  sudden  impulses  of  mere  majorities." 

In  his  "Thoughts  on  Government,"  which  he  addressed 
to  the  Virginians,  John  Adams  said: 

"There  is  no  good  government  but  what  is 
republican."  *  *  *  "The  only  valuable  part 
of  the  British  Constitution  at  the  time  he  wrote 
was,  he  declared,  republican."  *  *  *  "In  a 
large  society  inhabiting  an  extensive  country, 
it  is  impossible  that  the  whole  should  assemble 
to  make  laws.  The  first  necessary  step  then,  is 
to  depute  power  from  the  many  to  a  few  of 
the  most  wise  and  good." 

"THE  GREATEST  TRAGEDY  OF  CHRISTENDOM." 

On  April    19,    1911,   the   Cincinnati   "Enquirer"   con- 
tained the  following  remarkable  editorial: 

"A  pertinent  illustration  of  the  dangerous 
possibilities  lying  in  the  establishment  and  en- 
forcement of  the  referendum  has  been  dug  out 
of  the  pages  of  the  long  ago  by  a  prominent  Cin- 
cinnati attorney.  Imbued  with  a  modesty  by 
no  means  in  keeping  with  his  attainments,  he 
has  plead  for  anonymity.  Commenting  upon  an 
editorial  which  recently  appeared  in  The  En- 
quirer, which  discussed  at  length,  and  freely, 
the  modern  tendencies  of  legislative  ttodies  to- 


116  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

wards  isms  of  all  kinds,  and  notably  those  of 
popular  election  of  United  States  Senators,  the 
initiative  and  referendum  and  the  heretical  and 
viciously  dangerous  recall  of  Judges  idea,  the 
writer  invites  attention  to  the  twenty-third 
chapter  of  St.  Luke,  the  eighteenth  chapter  of 
St.  John,  as  well  as  the  co-ordinate  chapters  in 
the  other  of  the  four  Gospels  bearing  upon  the 
trial  and  crucifixion  of  the  Nazarene. 

"The  picture  of  the  Galilean  before  the 
Roman  Governor  in  the  hall  of  judgment  is  one 
familiar  to  most  of  the  civilized  world.  Flanked 
by  the  panoply  and  gorgeousness  with  which 
Rome  surrounded  her  colonial  Governors,  and 
imbued  with  a  sense  of  justice  and  a  knowledge 
of  the  law,  the  mighty  Pilate  could  find  no  fault 
with  the  humble  Teacher  who  stood  before  him. 
But  with  the  same  cringing  subservience  and 
fear  that  would  control  and  dominate  Judges  to- 
day if  they  were  subject  to  the  recall,  he  put 
the  matter  up  to  the  surging  mob  that  sur- 
rounded the  helpless  and  inoffensive  prisoner. 

"The  referendum  accomplished  its  ghastly 
purpose  with  a  celerity  and  avidity  that  as- 
tonished even  the  martial  and  warlike  represen- 
tative of  the  Caesars.  One  of  the  greatest 
tragedies  of  Christendom  was  the  product  of  one 
of  the  earliest  employments  of  the  referendum. 
The  Man  of  Peace  had  practiced  no  sedition, 
was  guilty  of  no  felony,  but  had  simply  taught  a 
philosophy  and  gospel  not  in  accordance  with 
the  practices  and  lives  of  the  people  among 
whom  He  lived. 

"Human  nature  changes  not.  Ochlocracy  as 
established  to-day,  would  demand  the  same 
sacrifice  of  life  or  principle.  Reason  and  judg- 
ment are  quickly  swept  to  the  four  winds  when 
passion  or  greed  is  inflamed.  The  fate  of  the 
Nazarene  would  be  the  fate  of  men  and  prin- 
ciples to-day  were  the  tenets  of  representative 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFEKENDUM.  117 

government  broken  down  and  discarded.  The 
foundation  upon  which  the  fathers  built  this 
republic  are  still  stanch  and  sound.  The  super- 
structure erected  thereon  has  brought  happiness 
and  prosperity  to  a  great  people.  Tampering 
with  their  splendid  legacy  will  be  but  to  invite 
unrest,  distrust  and  possible  disaster." 


LEGISLATIVE  "CURE-ALLS." 

In  an  address  delivered  before  the  Chicago  Civic  Fed- 
eration, February  4,  1911,  Prof.  J.  Laurence  Laughlin, 
head  of  the  Department  of  Political  Economy  of  the  Univ- 
"Tsity  of  Chicago,  said: 

"Is  there  not  an  unfortunate  passion  for 
trying  to  cure  the  ills  of  society  by  legislation? 
That  is,  we  are  asked  to  think  it  possible  by 
legislation  to  change  the  character  and  nature 
of  man.  To  change  the  external  envelope  of 
government  by  which  we  are  surrounded  is 
theoretically  taken  as  a  feasible  means  of  chang- 
ing the  nature,  desires,  and  purposes  of  the  in- 
dividual voter  within  the  limits  of  a  country. 
You  might  as  well  try  to  change  iron  into  steel 
by  changing  the  governors  of  the  states  contain- 
ing the  iron-mines.  Somehow  or  other  we  must 
get  down  to  the  causes  which  affect  human  na- 
ture itself;  we  should  spend  less  time  on  the 
scenery  of  the  stage  than  on  the  men  who  are 
moving  on  it.  This  is  the  fundamental  weak- 
ness of  Socialism;  that  it  hopes  to  recreate  the 
world  by  changing  the  social  system  without 
changing  the  qualities  of  dear  old  human  nature 
itself.  It  is  the  sign  of  a  superficial  man  to  put 
forward  a  nostrum  sure  to  cure  all  the  ills  of 
body  and  soul.  We  have  too  many  quacks  in 
politics  and  social  reform;  we  have  too  many 
persons  proposing  infallible  remedies  for  all 
p'otitical  and  economic  abuses — we  might  call 


118  INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

them  the  'Lydia  Pinkhams  of  the  social  system/ 
To  many,  this  might  seem  to  be  a  sufficient  rea- 
son for  hesitancy  in  opening  the  door  wide  for 
rash  legislation  by  the  Initiative  and  Referen- 
dum. 

"No  doubt  all  of  us  agree  with  the  purposes 
of  those  who  favor  the  Initiative  and  Referen- 
dum; but  we  wish  in  all  candor  to  be  sure  that 
the  means  to  carry  out  these  purposes — the 
special  laws — are  sufficient  for  the  desired  end. 
Let  me  illustrate:  The  voters  of  Illinois  have 
sent  to  Springfield  some  legislators  so  lacking 
in  honesty,  honor  and  loyalty  to  the  people  that 
we  are  a  stench  in  the  nostrils  of  the  whole  na- 
tion ;  and  honest  men  hang  their  heads  in  shame 
whenever  Illinois  politics  are  mentioned.  Now 
every  man  here  would  like  to  wipe  out  this  dis- 
grace. Can  it  be  done  by  the  Initiative  and 
Referendum?  Are  we  not  compelled  to  answer 
that  it  can  be  done  only  if  we  assume  that  cor- 
rupt voters  can  be  made  honest  by  legislation? 
Such  a  result.  I  submit,  cannot  be  accomplished 
by  any  act  of  laws ;  you  might  as  well  try  by  law 
to  require  every  man  in  Illinois  to  have  blue 
eyes.  Water  will  not  rise  higher  than  its 
source." 


"UTTERLY  AND  HOPELESSLY  UNDEMOCRATIC." 

Criticizing  the  new  Initiative  —  Referendum  —  Recall 
Constitution  of  Calif  omit,  and  the  method  of  its  adoption, 
the  New  York  "Times"  (independent  Democratic),  of 
October  18,  1911,  said: 

"This  new  method  of  handling  the  basic 
law  of  the  State  is  advocated  in  the  name  of 
democracy.  In  reality  it  is  utterly  and  hopeless- 
ly undemocratic.  While  pretending  to  give 
greater  rights  to  the  voters,  it  deprives  them  of 
the  opportunity  effectively  and  intelligently  to 


INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM.  119 

use  their  powers.  They  receive  the  right  to  vote 
much  oftener  and  on  a  larger  number  of  mat- 
ters than  before,  but  the  number  and  variety  of 
the  votes  they  are  called  on  to  cast  does  away 
with  all  chance  of  really  using  sense  and  dis- 
cretion as  to  all  of  them.  The  new  method  is 
proposed  as  a  check  on  the  machines.  But  the 
strength  of  the  machines  lies  in  the  inattention 
and  indifference  of  the  voters,  and  the  voters 
are  sure  in  the  long  run  to  be  more  inattentive 
and  indifferent  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
the  questions  forced  upon  them  at  one  time. 
When  the  machine  managers  get  familiar  with 
the  working  of  the  new  method,  they  will  work 
it  for  their  own  ends  far  more  readily  than  they 
work  the  present  method.  The  average  voter, 
muddled  and  puzzled  and  tired  by  the  impos- 
sible task  of  really  understanding  and  deciding 
on  a  mass  of  matters,  will  give  it  up,  and  then 
the  politicians  will  get  in  their  fine  work. 

"The  remedy  for  the  undoubted  evils  of 
machine  politics  is  not  in  multiplying,  confusing, 
and  making  more  troublesome  the  duties  of  the 
voter,  but  in  simplifying  and  restricting  them 
and  making  the  discharge  of  .each  of  them 
more  effective.  So  long  as  we  make  our  political 
business  so  difficult  that  common  men  cannot, 
will  not,  and  ought  not  to  give  to  it  the  time 
and  labor  absolutely  needed  for  success  in  it, 
so  long  there  will  be  professionals  to  attend  to 
it.  It  would  be  as  easy  to  run  the  business  of 
a  big  railway  by  leaving  every  detail  of  its 
managment  to  a  vote  of  the  shareholders  as  it 
will  be  to  run  the  business  of  a  State  under  the 
new  system.  And  the  results  in  the  latter  case 
will  be  as  a  mischievous  as  those  in  the  former 
would  be  sure  to  be." 


120          INITIATIVE  AND  REFERENDUM. 

GOV.  O'NEAL,  OF  ALABAMA,  ON  THE  I.  &  R. 

The  following  is  taken  from  the  Cincinnati  "Enquirer" 
of  December  8,  1911  : 

"Denouncing  the  initiative,  referendum  and 
recall  as  'dangerous  innovations  offered  as  a 
panacea  for  all  our  social  and  political  ills'  and 
suggesting  that  there  is  already  too  much  law  in 
this  country  and  the  greatest  service  that  legis- 
lators could  give  the  people  would  be  to  spend 
two  years  in  repealing  laws  instead  of  creating 
more,  Governor  Emmet  O'Neal,  of  Alabama, 
discussed  'Representative  Government'  before 
the  members  of  the  Cincinnati  Metal  Trades 
Association  at  the  Business  Men's  Club  last 
night. 

"The  Governor  did  not  mince  words  in  his 
attack  upon  the  three  principles  which  are  now 
prominently  before  the  people  of  Ohio.  He 
declared  that  the  wisdom  of  our  forefathers, 
who  made  the  constitution,  was  exemplified 
when  they  discarded  the  theories  of  direct  legis- 
lation or  a  pure  Democracy  and  established  the 
country  upon  the  basis  of  representative  gov- 
ernment. Any  constitutional  provision  that 
weakens  or  impairs  the  power  and  efficiency  of 
either  of  the  three  co-ordinate  departments  of 
government,  he  holds,  must  necessarily  weaken 
and  impair  the  efficiency  and  harmony  of  the 
whole. 

"  'Unless  this  political  heresy  is  checked/ 
he  continued,  'the  hosts  of  Socialism,  re-enforced 
by  selfish  and  time-serving  politicians  and  re- 
cruited by  all  the  elements  of  discontent,  will 
soon  direct  their  attacks  against  the  Federal 
Government  itself  and  gradually  sap  and  under- 
mine the  foundations  of  our  free  institutions/  " 


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